She concludes with `Goodbye, dear Helen, I am waiting anxiously for your advice-but mind you let it be all on the right side.'

Alas! poor Milicent, what encouragement can I give you?--or what advice--except that it is better to make a bold stand now, though at the expense of disappointing and angering both mother and brother, and lover, than to devote your whole life, hereafter, to misery and vain regret?

Saturday, 13th. The week is over, and he is not come. All the sweet summer is passing away without one breath of pleasure to me or benefit to him. And I had all along been looking forward to this season with the fond, delusive hope that we should enjoy it so sweetly together; and that, with God's help and my exertions, it would be the means of elevating his mind, and refining his taste to a due appreciation of the salutary and pure delights of nature. and peace, and holy love. But now,-- at evening, when I see the round, red sun sink quietly down behind those woody hills, leaving them sleeping in a warm, red, golden haze, I only think another lovely day is lost to him and me;--and at morning, when rouse' by the flutter and chirp of the sparrows, and the gleeful twitter of the swallows--all intent upon feeding their young, and full of life and joy in their own little frames--I open the window to inhale the balmy, soul-reviving air and look out upon the lovely landscape, laughing in dew and sunshine--I too often shame that glorious scene with tears of thankless misery, because he cannot feel its freshening influence;--and when I wander in the ancient woods, and meet the little wild flowers smiling in my path, or sit in the shadow of our noble ash-trees by the waterside with their branches gently swaying in the light summer breeze that murmurs through their feathery foliage--my ears full of that low music mingled with the dreamy hum of insects, my eyes abstractedly gazing on the glassy surface of the little lake before me, with the trees that crowd about its bank, some gracefully bending to kiss its waters, some rearing their stately heads high above, but stretching their wide arms over its margin, all faithfully mirrored far, far down in its glassy depth-- though sometimes the images are partially broken by the sport of aquatic insects, and sometimes, for a moment, the whole is shivered into trembling fragments by a transient breeze that swept the surface too roughly,--still I have no pleasure; for the greater the happiness that nature sets before me, the more I lament that he is not here to taste it: the greater the bliss we might enjoy together, the more I feel our present `wretchedness apart (yes, ours; he must be wretched, though he may not know it); and the more my senses are pleased, the more my heart is oppressed; for he keeps it with him confined amid the dust and smoke of London,--perhaps shut up within the walls of his own abominable club.

But most of all, at night, when I enter my lonely chamber. and look out upon the summer moon, `sweet regent of the sky,' floating above me in the `black blue vault of heaven,' shedding a flood of silver radiance over park, and wood, and water, so pure, so peaceful, so divine,--and think, `Where is he now?--what is he doing at this moment?--wholly unconscious of this heavenly scene,--perhaps revelling with his boon companions, perhaps--' God help me, it is too--too much!

23rd. Thank Heaven, he is come at last! But how altered!--flushed and feverish, listless and languid, his beauty strangely diminished, his vigour and vivacity quite departed. I have not upbraided him by word or look; I have not even asked him what he has been doing. I have not the heart to do it, for I think he is ashamed of himself--he must be so indeed,--and such enquiries could not fail to be painful to both. My forbearance pleases him--touches him even, I am inclined to think. He says he is glad to be home again, and God knows how glad I am to get him back, even as he is. He lies on the sofa nearly all day long; and I play and sing to him for hours together. I write his letters for him, and get him everything he wants; and sometimes I read to him, and sometimes I talk, and sometimes only sit by him and soothe him with silent caresses. I know he does not deserve it; and I fear I am spoiling him; but this once, I will forgive him, freely and entirely--I will shame him into virtue if I can, and I will never let him leave me again.

He is pleased with my attentions--it may be, grateful for them. He likes to have me near him; and though he is peevish and testy with his servants and his dogs, he is gentle and kind to me, What he would be, if I did not so watchfully anticipate his wants, and so carefully avoid, or immediately desist from, doing anything that has a tendency to irritate or disturb him, with however little reason, I cannot tell.