RECORDS OF A HEART. 1S1 



position she had once held, and I had almost forgotten the 

 unknown idol of my childish fancy, when I accidentally met 

 her, some years later, at a remote watering place. 



The impression she made upon me was any thing but 

 favorable. I beheld a tall, thin, pale woman, with features 

 delicately fashioned, but immobile and almost destitute of any 

 expression except cold intellectuality. Her manners were 

 chilling and unsocial, while her habitual moodiness struck me 

 as the result of her inordinate and purposeless devotion to 

 metaphysical studies. Perhaps a young, glad heart, in all its 

 early freshness, was neither a competent nor an impartial judge 

 of such a person. Certain it is that I rather disliked and 

 feared her, as a learned, sensible but decidedly unamiable 

 woman. I was however thrown into her society afterwards, 

 and learned to modify my first opinions, though I never under- 

 stood her, nor ever cordially sympathised with her apparently 

 cold nature. 



She died ere she attained middle age, yet her brown hair 

 was thickly mingled with silver threads ; and the furrows on 

 her brow showed how surely painful thought may anticipate 

 the work of time. Why she should have directed her papers 

 to be given to me I cannot imagine, unless indeed her know- 

 ledge of her own heart enabled her to discover a secret 

 sympathy between us, which, though unacknowledged by me, 

 was gratifying to her. The casket, I am ashamed to say, 

 remained unopened for several years, as I felt little disposition 

 to pore over the metaphysical essays and philosophical specula- 



