and that we shall derive nothing from it but a painful conviction of our error.  Your mother heard me read the letter, she read it herself, and honoured it with her warm approbation.  But it gave mortal offence; it received, indeed, an answer, but such an one as I could by no means reply to; and there ended (for it was impossible it should ever be renewed) a friendship that bid fair to be lasting; being formed with a woman whose seeming stability of temper, whose knowledge of the world and great experience of its folly, but, above all, whose sense of religion and seriousness of mind (for with all that gaiety she is a great thinker) induced us both, in spite of that cautious reserve that marked our characters, to trust her, to love and value her, and to open our hearts for her reception.  It may be necessary to add that by her own desire, I wrote to her under the assumed relation of a brother, and she to me as my sister. Ceu fumus in auras.”  It is impossible to read this without suspecting that there was more of “romance” on one side, than there was either of romance or of consciousness of the situation on the other.  On that occasion the reconciliation, though “impossible,” took place, the lady sending, by way of olive branch, a pair of ruffles, which it was known she had begun to work before the quarrel.  The second rupture was final.  Hayley, who treats the matter with sad solemnity, tells us that Cowper’s letter of farewell to Lady Austen, as she assured him herself, was admirable, though unluckily, not being gratified by it at the time, she had thrown it into the fire.  Cowper has himself given us, in a letter to Lady Hesketh, with reference to the final rupture, a version of the whole affair:—­“There came a lady into this country, by name and title Lady Austen, the widow of the late Sir Robert Austen.  At first she lived with her sister about a mile from Olney; but in a few weeks took lodgings at the vicarage here.  Between the vicarage and the back of our house are interposed our garden, an orchard, and the garden belonging to the vicarage.  She had lived much in France, was very sensible, and had infinite vivacity.  She took a great liking to us, and we to her.  She had been used to a great deal of company, and we, fearing that she would feel such a transition into silent retirement irksome, contrived to give her our agreeable company often.  Becoming continually more and more intimate, a practice at length obtained of our dining with each other alternately every day, Sundays excepted.  In order to facilitate our communication, we made doors in the two garden-walls aforesaid, by which means we considerably shortened the way from one house to the other, and could meet when we pleased without entering the town at all; a measure the rather expedient, because the town is abominably dirty, and she kept no carriage.  On her first settlement in our neighbourhood, I made it my own particular business (for at that time I was not employed in writing, having published my first