My own sorrows I can bear without shrinking, without disclosing by one sign what I am internally suffering.

I have been nerved from my earliest years to trial, and it would be strange indeed did I not seem as you believe me.

_I_ know not what it is to love.

_I_ know not the pang of that utter hopelessness which bows my poor cousin to the earth.

Ah, Emmeline, you know not such _hopelessness_ as mine, gloomy as are your prospects; you can claim the sympathy, the affection, the consolation, of all those who are dear to you; there is no need to hide your love, ill-fated as it is, for it is _returned_--you are beloved; and I, my heart must bleed in secret, for no such mitigation attends its loss of peace.