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162 Here none would follow me—none interrupt—not Madame herself. I shut the garret-door; I placed my light on a doddered and mouldy chest of drawers; I put on a shawl, for the air was ice-cold; I took my letter, trembling with sweet impatience; I broke its seal.

"Will it be long— will it be short?" thought I, passing my hand across my eyes to dissipate the silvery dimness of a suave, south wind shower.

It was long.

"Will it be cool?— will it be kind?"

It was kind.

To my checked, bridled, disciplined expectation, it seemed very kind; to my longing and famished thought it seemed, perhaps, kinder than it was.

So little had I hoped, so much had I feared; there was a fullness of delight in this taste of fruition—such, perhaps, as many a human being passes through life without ever knowing. The poor English teacher in the frosty garret, reading by a dim candle guttering in the wintry air, a letter simply good-natured—nothing more: though that good-nature then seemed to me god-like—was happier than most queens in palaces.

Of course, happiness of such shallow origin could