Heaven grant that nothing shall now come between
me and this long-looked for realization. Mamma sends you her fondest
love, and so does your own HORTENSE."
"_You will be glad, because it will have made your poor Hortense so
happy_!" These words seemed to stand out from all the rest, and
attract my attention more forcibly. "_Some one about whom you must
have made many strange conjectures since your recent visit to me._"
Ah! it was clear enough to me now. She may as well have written her
story through; but, was it not what I had expected? What I had
prepared for? Why should the announcement of its accomplishment shock
or surprise me now? He was nothing to _me_,--but a friend! as friends
we had parted, and if we ever met again, it should only be as
friends--perhaps not even as the friends we were then, if he were
Hortense de Beaumont's husband.
I folded her letter slowly and quietly, and put it safely away; I
wanted never to see it, or read it again, it was the story of my dear
friend's happiness, and it should not bring sorrow, or disappointment
to me, so long as I professed to love her, or sympathize with her. So
kind, so thoughtful, so affectionate a little creature as she had ever
shown herself to me. How many of her heart's treasures she had freely
lavished upon me during the course of our eventful friendship!
If she had had the better fortune of the two, it was her luck, and she
deserved it. "_Heaven grant that nothing now shall come between me and
this long-looked for realization_!" Poor child! how fond she was of
him, could any one cast an impediment between such loves as these?
I turned down the light, and left the room: there were laughter and
merry-making below, perhaps they would help me to forget these gloomy
thoughts.
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