’Pardon it to one who knew that she would require super-feminine power of decision to resolve that she would dispose of herself!

’I heard of Harry Richmond before I saw him.  My curiosity to behold the two fair boys of the sailor kingdom set me whipping my pony after them that day so remote, which is always yesterday.  My thoughts followed you, and I wondered—­does he mean to be a distinguished countryman of his Nelson? or a man of learning?  Then many an argument with “my Professor,” until—­for so it will ever be—­the weaker creature did succumb in the open controversy, and thought her thoughts to herself.  Contempt of England gained on me still.  But when I lay withered, though so young, by the sea-shore, his country’s ancient grandeur insisted, and I dreamed of Harry Richmond, imagining that I had been false to my childhood.  You stood before me, dearest.  You were kind:  you were strong, and had a gentle voice.  Our souls were caught together on the sea.  Do you recollect my slip in the speaking of Lucy Sibley’s marriage?—­“We change countries.”  At that moment I smelt salt air, which would bring you to my sight and touch were you and I divided let me not think how far.

’To-morrow I tell the prince, my father, that I am a plighted woman.  Then for us the struggle, for him the grief.  I have to look on him and deal it.

’I can refer him to Dr. Julius for my estimate of my husband’s worth.

’"My Professor” was won by it.  He once did incline to be the young bold Englishman’s enemy.  “Why is he here? what seeks he among us?” It was his jealousy, not of the man, but of the nation, which would send one to break and bear away his carefully cultivated German lily.  No eye but his did read me through.  And you endured the trial that was forced on you.  You made no claim for recompense when it was over.  No, there is no pure love but strong love!  It belongs to our original elements, and of its purity should never be question, only of its strength.

’I could not help you when you were put under scrutiny before the margravine and the baroness.  Help from me would have been the betrayal of both.  The world has accurate eyes, if they are not very penetrating.  The world will see a want of balance immediately, and also too true a balance, but it will not detect a depth of concord between two souls that do not show some fretfulness on the surface.

’So it was considered that in refusing my cousin Otto and other proposed alliances, I was heart-free.  An instructed princess, they thought, was of the woeful species of woman.  You left us:  I lost you.  I heard you praised for civil indifference to me—­the one great quality you do not possess!  Then it was the fancy of people that I, being very cold, might be suffered to hear my cousin plead for himself.  The majority of our family favour Otto.  He was permitted to woo me as though I had been a simple maid; and henceforth shall I have pity for all poor