Then I hope to hear of you from time to time;
but my mother and myself do not return to England.
"And now what am I to say, being so far away from you, that will sound
pleasant to you, and that you will remember after with kindness? I look
back now over the time since I have known you, and it appears a
beautiful dream--anxious sometimes, and troubled, but always with a
golden future before it that almost bewildered the eyes. And what am I
to say of your goodness, so unvarying and constant; and your
thoughtfulness; and your great unselfishness and outspokenness? When was
there the least misunderstanding between us? I could read your heart
like my own. Only once, you remember, was there a chance of a shadow
coming between us--through my own folly; and yet perhaps it was only
natural for a girl, fancying that everything was going to be smooth and
happy in her life, to look back on what she had said in times of
trouble, and to be afraid of having spoken with too little reserve. But
then you refused to have even the slightest lovers' quarrel; you laughed
away my folly.
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