University of Virginia Library

“'Tis so long since I've written to my Kate that she
must almost have forgotten me. But you will not think,
my dear, that this silence has proceeded from forgetfulness;
that is not possible toward the dearest girl in the world.

“I have been unhappy, and when I'm unhappy I can not
write. Alas! my Kate, I am greatly changed. I am no
more merry and happy, as I used to be. Once I thought
this life was the gayest and happiest existence imaginable;
I laughed and jested, and bade defiance to gloom. Now,
all's gone from me. I only sigh, and sometimes I go away
and cry for hours. You know the cause of this change.

“I write now to tell you that I've seen him again, and
oh! he was so changed. I shall proceed to tell you how
the interview took place. In pouring my pain and sorrow
into my own Kate's ears, I may relieve my bosom, in some
degree, of the cruel pressure I experience.

“'T was this morning, at the `quarters,' in Mammy Liza's
cabin. I woke at sunrise, crying from a bad dream I had,
in which I saw him wounded and dying in a great battle
with the Indians. My dream was so vivid that when sister
shook and awoke me, I was sobbing and crying, and for a
long time I could not get over the impression.

“I rose and dressed, however, and went on my customary
rounds to see the sick, returning, as my habit is, by Mammy
Liza's house.

“I had been thinking of my dream and of him, and approached
the cabin with my head bent down, gazing absently
at a small white flower I held in my hand—a little
rose, such as I'd given him one day, when we went together
to Jamestown island—it seems centuries now! and I scarce
realize the truth that I am the Bonnybel of that time. But
I shall not stop to speak of that. I was very near the door
of Mammy Liza's house, and was thinking of him, as I do
now and then, when I heard the neigh of a horse. I thought
that there was something familiar and yet strange in the
sound, and looked toward the spot from which it issued.

“I recognized Tallyho, his horse, in an instant; and,
when I turned my head toward the cabin, he stood before
me. Oh, me! he was so thin and pale. Oh, Kate! you
can not conceive what a change had taken place in his appearance.
Formerly, he had been so strong and handsome;
his cheeks so ruddy, and his lips and eyes so laughing and
full of joyous pride when he raised his noble head and
looked at you with that beautiful smile of such extraordinary
sweetness. My heart bleeds as I describe the change;
now the color had all disappeared from his face; his eyes
were dim and sunken, as after illness; his cheeks white
and thin, and the hand which he leaned on Mammy Liza's
spinning-wheel was like a ghost's! His dress looked travel-worn,
and his left arm was supported by a scarf, of some
Indian fabric, passed around his neck. He was but the
shadow of himself, and when he looked at me with a slight
tinge of color in his cheek and a sad surprise, inexpressibly
sorrowful, I would have burst into tears, and cried myself
weak, had not I placed a violent constraint upon myself.
As I found afterward, he had been talking with Mammy
Liza for nearly two hours, and thus he must have ridden to
Vanely in the night. Mammy Liza was crying and fixing
her spindle, stopping every moment to wipe her old eyes,

and muttering, `My child! my own child!' in such an
affecting way that I could scarcely restrain my sobs. I give
way to them now as I write. These blots upon the paper
are tears.

“He stood, for a moment, looking at me so sadly that it
made my heart ache and my throat feel as if it were choking.
He then took from the left breast of his doublet an old
letter, and, with an inclination of courtesy—yes, simple
courtesy—held it toward me. It was the very letter I had
seen the soldier try to take from his breast when I saw him
dying in my dream, and the wound was now, apparently, in
his shoulder, really, as I had dreamed it. How strange!
For a moment I stood looking at him with tears in my eyes,
and he continued to hold the letter toward me.

“I saw that he would hold it thus until I took it, and
that the exertion was making him weaker. I unconsciously
received it, and then holding, for a moment, in his own,
Mammy Liza's hand, he inclined before me again with a
long, penetrating look, passed by me like a shadow, and
thus, with his pale face turned over his shoulder, as it were,
he mounted his horse, and was lost in the woods. He had
never spoken—I had not heard his voice!

“I can write but little more, Kate; I feel faint and
badly. This interview has, since the morning, preyed upon
my spirits; and I have vainly sought to relieve my distress
by writing to you. It seems only to have opened the wound
afresh. I remained with Mammy Liza until a message
came that breakfast was ready, but I could not extract from
her any thing, scarcely. She only wrung her hands, and
muttered, `My child! my own child!' in a manner that
nearly broke my heart; and I finally came away, and have
come here to my chamber now to hide my red eyes.

“Can you explain the strange fact of my dream? He
was clad just as I saw him, and, lying before me, is the letter
which I dreamed they wished to take from him. As he
gave it to me he looked intently at the white flower in my
hand, and I think, as he went away, and the letter fell at my

feet, he remembered—oh, me! my memory is my chief
wretchedness!

“Oh, Kate! if I could only lay my head upon your bosom,
and cry myself to rest there! This meeting has made me
ill, and I feel as though I was going to faint.

“Was I wrong in the past? Answer me, Kate: Was
I wrong? Could I so command my feelings as to prevent
the terrible change in our relations? I ask the question
with inexpressible anguish. Oh, tell me, Kate! was I
wrong?

“I know not, but I do know that I'm miserable! His
old affection is mine no longer; he bowed with common
courtesy alone. Wo is me that the day should ever come!

“I can not write more. The words swim in tears, and
I'm blinded by them. Farewell.