University of Virginia Library

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3

With the hope that some portion of the purity and truth of your nature, may be
found embodied in these pages, in the character of Catharine Ardenheim, I dedicate
this book to you. I might inscribe upon this page some name indicative of worldly
power, and wordly wealth, but there is no power beneath Heaven like that which
derives its impulses from a Sister's Counsels—there is no wealth than can compare
for a moment, with the priceless treasure of a Sister's Love.

When your eye for the first time rests upon this page—when you discover that
without your permission or knowledge, I have written your name at the head of
these lines—I beseech to regard the act as a word of blessing from a Brother to a
Sister. Regard it thus, and at the same time accept it as a memorial of the years
of Orphanage we have spent together. It is true, that with but a few exceptions,
the name we bear, is only borne by those who sleep their last in the silence of the
grave. I write your name,—here—upon my book—and ask you to remember the
days when all was dark with me; when my name was uttered with the hiss of
calumniation, and my life poisoned by every slander that malice could invent, or
falsehood enunciate; but, when my Sister, scarcely more than a Child in years,
was my friend—almost the only friend I had on the earth of God—when she stood
by me, with the counsels of a Sister's Love, and said in face of cloud and danger
—“Brother! God-speed!”