CHAPTER ELEVEN.
"LIFE!" I hold it truth with him who sings, On one clear harp, in divers tones, That men may rise, on stepping stones Of their dead lives, to higher things! However grievous and crushing we may consider the trials and troubles of life to be, while they last, they are never altogether unbearable.
The load laid upon us is seldom weighted beyond the capacity of our endurance; and then, when in course of time our ills become alleviated, and the burden we have so long borne slides off our backs, the relief we feel is proportionately all the greater, our sense of light-heartedness and mental freedom, the more intense and complete.
Existence, to follow out the argument, is not always painted in shadow, its horizon obscured by dark-tinted nebulosities! On the contrary, there is ever some light infused into it, to bring out the deeper tones--"a silver lining" generally "to every cloud," as the proverb has it.

So, I now experienced, as I am going to tell you.
The second year of my residence in America opened much more brightly than the miserable twelvemonth I had just passed through might have led me to hope--if I could have hoped on any longer, that is! Early in the spring, when the warming breath of the power-increasing sun was slowly unloosing the chains of winter--when the rapid-running Hudson was sweeping down huge blocks and fields of ice from Albany, flooding New York Bay with a collection of little bergs, so that it looked somewhat like the Arctic effect I had seen on the Thames on that happy Christmas of the past, only on ever so much larger a scale--I received letters from England that cheered me up wonderfully, changing the whole aspect of my life.
"Good news from home, good news for me, had come across the deep blue sea"-- in the words of Gilmore's touching ballad; and "though I wandered far away, my heart was full of joy to-day; for, friends across the ocean's foam had sent to me good news from home"-- to further paraphrase it.
_Good_ news?
--"glorious news," rather, I should say! Yes, I had not only a glad, welcome letter from Miss Pimpernell, in which the dear little old lady made me laugh and cry again; but, I also heard from the good vicar, who was one of the worst correspondents in the world, never putting pen to paper, save in the compilation of his weekly sermons, except under the most dire necessity, or kindly compulsion.
To receive an epistle from him was an event! And, what do you think he wrote to me about?
What, can you imagine, made dear little Miss Pimpernell's lengthy missive--scribed as it was in the most puzzling of calligraphies--of so engrossing an interest, that I read it again and again; valuing it more than all her previous budgets of parish gossip put together, entertaining as I thought them before?
Once, twice, three times?
No, I do not believe you can guess what it was that gave me such delight in the "good news from home," sharp and shrewd though you may think yourself.
If you will take my advice, you had better treat it as a conundrum and "give it up." Don't keep you in suspense, eh?
Well then, I will tell you--here goes.
It is a long story--too long to describe in detail; but the upshot of it was that my kind friend the vicar, cognisant of the sincere affection that existed between my darling and myself, and knowing the suffering that had been caused to us both by the enforced silence which we had to maintain towards each other, had interceded with Mrs Clyde on our behalf; and, what is more, had done so successfully! There, fancy that! Don't you think I had sufficient reason to be rejoiced?
Min and I were to be allowed to write to each other for a year--as "friends," a condition of intimacy to which her mother seemed to attach a good deal of point, as she had made it an obligatory proviso to our correspondence.

Mrs Clyde had, in addition to this, tacked on a sweeping clause to the agreement, to the effect that, in case my prospects at the end of the year should not warrant my returning to England and claiming Min as my promised wife--prospects of a short engagement and an easy settlement being also satisfactory--the whole negotiation should fall to the ground and be considered null and void; we, reverting to our original and hopeless position of soi-disant strangers or "friends" at a distance, and looking upon the interlude of our letter-writing as if it had never occurred.
I did not give much thought, however, to this ultimatum.
I was too full of happiness at the idea of being allowed to correspond at once with my darling, and hear from her own dear self after the weary months that had passed since our separation.

Why, I would be able to tell her all my plans and hopes and fears, conscious that her sympathy would never fail to congratulate me in success; condole with me, cheer me, encourage me, in failure! And then, her letters! What a feast they would be, coming like grateful dew on the thirsty soil of my heart--sunshine succeeding to the April shower of disappointment that lay on my memory.

Her letters! They would be so many little Mins, visiting me to soothe my exile, and bringing me, face to face and soul to soul, in the spirit, with their loving autotype at home! I was nerved to action at once.
Before the day on which I received the welcome intelligence was one hour older, I had sat me down and penned a hurried sheet of ecstatic rapture to my darling--the first number of our delightful little serial which was going to be regularly issued every fortnight until further notice in time for posting on mail days! I only just managed to catch the European packet, so I could not write a very long letter on this occasion--as I had also to answer the vicar's and Miss Pimpernell's communications; but I said quite enough, I think, to let my darling know, that, although she had not been able to hear from me directly before, she had never been out of my thoughts.
You may be sure, too, that I did not forget to send a short note to Mrs Clyde, thanking her for her kindness to us both.