“August 4th.

“That was a crazy bit that I wrote last night, but I will not make away with it.  I don’t care how crazy you think me.  It would have been a pity not to have slept to wake to the knowledge that all was not a dream, but then came the contrast with the sorrow you are watching.  And I have just had your letter.  What a sudden close to that joyous life!  She was one of the most winning beings, as you truly say, that ever flashed across one’s course, and if she had faults, they were those of her day and her training.  I suppose, by what you say, that she was too girlish to be all the companion your brother required, and that this may account for his being more shocked than sorrow-stricken, and his child, since he can dwell on the thought, is such a new beginning of hope, that I wonder less than you do at his bearing up so well.  Besides, pain dulls the feelings, and is a great occupation.  I wish you could have seen that dear Bessie, but I gather that the end came on much more rapidly than had been expected.  It seemed as if she were one of those to whom even suffering was strangely lightened and shortened, as if she had met only the flowers of life, and even the thorns and stings were almost lost in their bright blossoms.  And she could hardly have lived on without much either of temptation or sorrow.  I am glad of your testimony to Rachel’s effectiveness, I wrote it out and sent it up to the Homestead.  There was a note this morning requesting Edward to come in to see Maddox, and Ailie is gone with him, thinking she may get leave to see poor Maria.  Think of writing ’Edward and Ailie again!  Dr. Long and Harry are gone with them.  The broken thread is better pieced by Harry than by the Doctor; but he wants Ailie and me to go and stay at Belfast.  Now I must hear Rose read, in order to bring both her and myself to our reasonable senses.”

“5 P. M.

“They have been returned about an hour, and I must try to give you Edward’s account of his interview.  Maddox has quite dropped his mask, and seems to have been really touched by being brought into contact with Edward again, and, now it is all up with him, seemed to take a kind of pleasure in explaining the whole web, almost, Edward said, with vanity at his own ingenuity.  His earlier history was as he used to represent it to Edward.  He was a respectable ironmonger’s son, with a taste for art; he was not allowed to indulge it, and then came rebellion, and breaking away from home.  He studied at the Academy for a few years, but wanted application, and fancied he had begun too late, tried many things and spent a shifty life, but never was consciously dishonest till after he had fallen in with Edward; and the large sums left uninquired for in his hands became a temptation to one already inclined to gambling.  His own difficulties drove him on, and before he ventured on the grand stroke, he had been in a course of using the sums in his hands