you; but I am sorry for my own want of power to please. I hear the wind
sigh through the lattice, and keep repeating over and over to myself two
lines of Lord Byron's Tragedy--

"So shalt thou find me ever at thy side Here and hereafter, if the last
may be."--

applying them to thee, my love, and thinking whether I shall ever see
thee again. Perhaps not--for some years at least--till both thou and I
are old--and then, when all else have forsaken thee, I will creep to
thee, and die in thine arms. You once made me believe I was not hated
by her I loved; and for that sensation, so delicious was it, though but
a mockery and a dream, I owe you more than I can ever pay. I thought to
have dried up my tears for ever, the day I left you; but as I write
this, they stream again. If they did not, I think my heart would burst.
I walk out here of an afternoon, and hear the notes of the thrush, that
come up from a sheltered valley below, welcome in the spring; but they
do not melt my heart as they used: it is grown cold and dead. As you
say, it will one day be colder.--Forgive what I have written above; I
did not intend it: but you were once my little all, and I cannot bear
the thought of having lost you for ever, I fear through my own fault.
Has any one called? Do not send any letters that come. I should like
you and your mother (if agreeable) to go and see Mr. Kean in Othello,
and Miss Stephens in Love in a Village. If you will, I will write to
Mr. T----, to send you tickets. Has Mr. P---- called? I think I must
send to him for the picture to kiss and talk to. Kiss me, my best
beloved. Ah! if you can never be mine, still let me be your proud and
happy slave.