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118 one charmed dream of his glad and eager youthhood.

From the contemplation of the portrait he turned to his own letters: he began to look them over, and mournful—for all things departed are mournful—was the train of feeling with which they were connected. Saddened, softened, and subdued as he felt while reading them, yet more than once he laughed aloud—so absurd did the exaggerated expressions of the boy appear to the man. At last, in pure shame, he laid them down. "Good Heaven!" exclaimed he, "could I ever have written such nonsense?—and yet how delicious was the folly! Ah! wisdom is little worth what it costs!" and, with a graver brow, he turned to Richard Arden's letter. He read on, every feature convulsed with emotion, till he came to her death, when the paper dropped from his hand—he had never dreamed of such horror. To one who had known but the lulled emotions of domestic life, which had passed in the sunshine of prosperity—a quiet, pleasant, indolent sort of ready-shaped existence—such things appeared impossible till they had actually happened. His only relief was to execrate Arden; and, with the self-indulgence natural to one whom no bitter experience had ever forced upon still more bitter