Nothing has happened since you went worth your knowledge.  My Lord Marquis Hertford has lost his son, my Lord Beauchamp, who has left a fine young widow.  In earnest, ’tis great pity; at the rate of our young nobility he was an extraordinary person, and remarkable for an excellent husband.  My Lord Cambden, too, has fought with Mr. Stafford, but there’s no harm done.  You may discern the haste I’m in by my writing.  There will come a time for a long letter again, but there will never come any wherein I shall not be

Yours.

[Sealed with black wax, and directed]
     For Mr. William Temple,
         at Sir John Temple’s home
              in Damask Street,
                  Dublin.

Thus Dorothy leaves Chicksands, her last words from her old home to Temple breathing her love and affection for him.  It is no great sorrow at the moment to leave Chicksands, for its latest memories are scenes of sickness, grief, and death.  And now the only home on earth for Dorothy lies in the future; it is not a particular spot on earth, but to be by his side, wherever that may be.

CHAPTER VI

VISITING.  SUMMER 1654

This chapter opens with a portion of a letter written by Sir William Temple to his mistress, dated Ireland, May 18, 1654.  It is the only letter, or rather scrap of letter which we have of his, and by some good chance it has survived with the rest of Dorothy’s letters.  It will, I think, throw great light on his character as a lover, showing him to have been ardent and ecstatic in his suit, making quite clear Dorothy’s wisdom in insisting, as she often does, on the necessity of some more material marriage portion than mere love and hope.  His reference to the “unhappy differences” strengthens my view that the letters of the former chapter belong all to one date.

Letter 57.—­Letter of Sir William Temple.

May 18th, 1654.

...  I am called upon for my letter, but must have leave first to remember you of yours.  For God’s sake write constantly while I am here, or I am undone past all recovery.  I have lived upon them ever since I came, but had thrived much better had they been longer.  Unless you use to give me better measure, I shall not be in case to undertake a journey to England.  The despair I was in at not hearing from you last week, and the belief that all my letters had miscarried (by some treachery among my good friends who, I am sorry, have the name of yours), made me press my father by all means imaginable to give me leave to go presently if I heard not from you this post.  But he would never yield to that, because, he said, upon your silence he should suspect all was not likely to be well between us, and then he was sure I should not be in condition to be alone.  He remembered too well the letters I writ upon our last unhappy differences, and would not trust me from him in such another occasion.  But, withal, he told me he would never give me occasion of any discontent which he could remedy; that if you desired my coming over, and I could not be content without, he would not hinder me, though he very much desired my company a month or two longer, and that in that time ’twas very likely I might have his as well.