to-day shaken off the burs that hung about us, to-morrow we give a glance and perceive them sticking as closely and as thick as ever!
I wish to question Frank, concerning these alarms; but he seems purposely to avoid giving me an opportunity. Perhaps however I am mistaken; and I hope I am. The restless fancy is frequently too full of doubts and fears. Oh, how beautiful is open, artless, undisguised truth! Yet how continually are dissimulation and concealment recommended as virtues! Whatever mistakes, public or private, they may think they have discovered, and however beneficial it might be to correct them, men must not pubsish

their thoughts; for that would be to libel, to defame, to speak or to write scandal!
When will the world learn that the unlimited utterance of all thoughts would be virtuous? How many half-discovered half-acknowledged truths would then be promulgated; and how immediately would mistake, of every kind, meet its proper antidote! How affectionately and unitedly would men soon be brought to join, not in punishing, nor even in reproving, but in reforming falsehood! Aided and encouraged by your dear and worthy mother, we have often discoursed on these things, Louisa: and the common accidents of life, as well as those peculiar to myself,

render such conversations sweet to recollection.
I must conclude: for though we write best when thoughts flow the most freely, yet at present I find myself more inclined to think than to write.
Affectionately and ever A. W. ST. IVES.


ANNA WENBOURNE ST. IVES TO LOUISA CLIFTON.
Chateau de Villebrun.
I KNOW not, Louisa, how to begin! I have an accident to relate which has alarmed me so much that I am half afraid it should equally alarm my friend. Yet the danger is over, and her sensations cannot equal ours. She can but imagine what they were. But it is so incredible,

so mad, so dreadful! Clifton is strangely rash!
He had been for some days dissatisfied, restless, and disturbed. I knew not why, except that I had desired time for mutual consideration, before I would permit him to speak to Sir Arthur. He has half terrified me from ever permitting him to speak—But then he has more than repaired all the wrong he had done. There is something truly magnanimous in his temper, but it has taken a very erroneous bent. The chief subject of my last was the distance which I observed between him and Frank Henley. Little did I know the reason. But I will not anticipate: only,