Have you made that model of Innocence that is to have my forehead, and hair parted like mine! Make it pretty, do, that is a darling.
Now don't make a face at my letter.

It is n't a very good one, I know; but your poor little Susie does the best she can, and she loves you so much! Now do be nice and write me one little bit of a mite of a poem,--it will make me just as happy! I am very well, and as happy as I can be when you are away.
Your affectionate SUSIE.
(Directed to Mr.Clement Lindsay, Alderbank.) The envelope of this letter was unbroken, as was before said, when the young man took it from his desk.

He did not tear it with the hot impatience of some lovers, but cut it open neatly, slowly, one would say sadly.

He read it with an air of singular effort, and yet with a certain tenderness.

When he had finished it, the drops were thick on his forehead; he groaned and put his hands to his face, which was burning red.
This was what the impulse of boyhood, years ago, had brought him to! He was a stately youth, of noble bearing, of high purpose, of fastidious taste; and, if his broad forehead, his clear, large blue eyes, his commanding features, his lips, firm, yet plastic to every change of thought and feeling, were not an empty mask, might not improbably claim that Promethean quality of which the girl's letter had spoken,--the strange, divine, dread gift of genius.
This poor, simple, innocent, trusting creature, so utterly incapable of coming into any true relation with his aspiring mind, his large and strong emotions,--this mere child, all simplicity and goodness, but trivial and shallow as the little babbling brooklet that ran by his window to the river, to lose its insignificant being in the swift torrent he heard rushing over the rocks,--this pretty idol for a weak and kindly and easily satisfied worshipper, was to be enthroned as the queen of his affections, to be adopted as the companion of his labors! The boy, led by the commonest instinct, the mere attraction of biped to its female, which accident had favored, had thrown away the dearest possession of manhood,--liberty,--and this bauble was to be his lifelong reward! And yet not a bauble either, for a pleasing person and a gentle and sweet nature, which had once made her seem to him the very paragon of loveliness, were still hers.