“If you remember me at all, I know it is only as the wild and trifling boy who loved you better than his books, better than all children he ever knew. You know me not at all as the stern, time-tried, care-worn man, who has fought fierce battles with fortune and life, who finds himself wasting the powers of his manhood, far severed from all domestic, humanizing ties, treasuring in his heart only one name that makes the joyful recollection of his youth—careless, cold, and selfish perhaps, but never losing hold of that one, dear link to the affection, the lasting, undying affection that was born of you in my youthful soul, and still, still preserves its strength through you.
“Perhaps, indeed, you do not in the faintest degree remember me. You may have to recall with an effort the time of childhood, or at least that time when I was your school-companion; nay, it may be an effort for you to recall my name. Oh, if that is the truth, how very different is it to the memory I have treasured of you, dear Grace. My home has been upon the oceans and in the deserts, and mid the wilds of nature every where. Many years have passed since I left my father’s house, and my feet have never from that time touched upon my native shores. During these years of absence I have had opportunities to try my heart. I have learned who are the friends most dear to me, and over the vast sea of the desert sand, across the great ocean, let my voice come and whisper in your ear, Grace, there are none, none whose memory is so treasured now as is your own! The longing which is so often felt by the wanderer for the scenes and familiar faces of his native land, has never before pressed so heavily on me as this night; and now I wish, oh, how eagerly, to revisit, if it be only for an hour, that quiet place where a portion of my school-life was passed; and yet it is only because it is, or may be still your home; and were I there again, I might tread with you along the race-course, and over the old bridge to —— Grove, and through all the haunts now treasured in my memory. Do you remember the gifts we gave at parting? and did you fling away the bud as a worthless, trifling thing, even before it was faded? Or—what madness, you will think, prompted such an idea—do you keep it still? Perhaps you had not then so fully awakened to the life of the heart, you may not have dreamed that with that simple memento I gave to you the dreams of my boyhood, the hopes of my youth. Grace, I gave you MY HEART with the flower. I have never since recalled it. And now, if memories are returning again to you, if you are looking half tremblingly into the past, you will think of the little curl and the frail forget-me-not. Oh, you will not need that I should tell now how in danger and in suffering, and through all the most varied experiences I have preserved them—and how I have not forgotten.
“Last night I dreamed that you kept the rose-bud yet, and, will you believe it, when I awakened, and recalled to mind the proverb about the truthfulness of dreams, and their contrariness, it troubled me. Thousands of miles lie between us, and we may never meet again, all recollections of my native land save those relating to you only, are hateful to me; but, could I only hear your voice assuring me this night, or could I believe that you would welcome me back, and say to me with your own sweet voice that you were glad to see me, oh, I should run and could not weary nor grow faint, and neither day nor night should look upon my lagging feet until I stood once more beside you. Thou, beautiful joy of my childhood, say, wouldst thou welcome me?
“Perhaps you will think I have taken an unwarrantable liberty in so addressing you, for the friendships and loves of children are, I know, usually evanescent as dreams, yet I cannot, will not, think that whatever may be your position in life now, or whatever may be the relations you sustain in life, I do not believe that you will scorn me for the words I have written, or that you will read carelessly this record of my thoughts.
“Time has dealt with no light hand to me, he may have given you, perhaps, with every passing year, a blessing. He has laid no caressing arm on me; possibly he has guided you thus far tenderly as a mother would lead her child. I have bowed beneath his frown, and you, you may have grown to glorious perfectness in the light of his smile. I have known deep sorrows—it may be, oh, I pray it may not be—that you also have not escaped the universal heritage. It might be far beyond your possibility to recognize in me the bright boy filled with glad expectations that you once knew; but I cannot but believe that I should know you, and recognize you amid a multitude—the mild and beautiful blue eyes—the meek, gentle, and so expressive countenance—the smile, so sweet and winning, that rested so often on the face of the dear child; oh, they are not yet forgotten. I am convinced the woman whom I love has a face whose expression is heavenly! Do not censure me, I pray, for daring to tell my love. The hope of being with you once again, and of speaking with and looking upon you, is like the hope of heaven to the pilgrim, weary and out-worn with earth-striving.
“Months will pass away before these words, uttered from the fullness of my heart, reach you—the heart from which they come may have ere then ceased its beating, may be cold and dead; but will it be nothing for you to know that its beatings were ever true to you, even though you never have, and do not now need my homage? Will you care to think that when I wrote these words it was my highest hope that I might one day follow them to the home of Grace Germain, to beseech at least her friendliness, to hear the tones of her dear voice again, and then perhaps to lie down to rest in the grave-yard near her home, where it would be no wrong for her to come sometimes, even from a circle of beloved ones, to think of days gone by, the days of merry childhood.
“I have written too much—too much; the day is dawning, we shall journey far through the desert before to-morrow morning, but to-night, with every word I have written, thoughts and great hopes have awakened which will never be stilled again—they will be with me till I stand once more before you; and if there be a dearer one on whom your eyes will rest as you lift them from this page, to whom you will confide this folly of an old man, as you perhaps will call it, yet still remember me, and let him think of me with forgiving kindness.
“May the rich blessing of heaven be with you now and ever.
“Hugh Willson.”
And had Hugh Willson, indeed, committed an unpardonable trespass in writing thus, after the lapse of so many years, to his old schoolmate? No, no! bear witness the sudden flashings of color, and the as sudden paleness which swept over the lady’s face as she read on; bear witness the occasional smiles, and the long and passionate weeping in which the lonely woman indulged, when her eyes rested so tenderly and sadly on the name affixed to the strange epistle. They were not tears of anger that she shed; it was not a smile of derision and mockery, at the sudden betrayal of affection the man had given, after a silence of years; they were not words of scorn which escaped her lips when she laid down to rest that night; ah, no! he had powerfully touched a chord in her soul, that from her childhood had ever vibrated even at the mention of his name.