You know what sorrows I have passed through, Jemima; how unjustly I was always treated at school, the masters keeping me back and calling me a blockhead, though, as they themselves allowed, I had the best memory of any boy in the school, and could repeat whole books from beginning to end.

You know how cruelly father always used me, calling me a noodle and a milksop, just because he couldn't understand my fine nature.

You know how he has made a farmer of me instead of a minister, as I ought to have been; you know it all, Jemima; and how I have borne it all, not as a woman, who whines for every touch, but as a man should--in silence.
"But there are things, there is a thing, which the soul longs to pour forth into a kindred ear.
"Dear sister, have you ever known what it is to keep wanting and wanting and wanting to kiss some one's mouth, and you may not; to touch some one's hand, and you cannot?
I am in love, Jemima.
"The old Dutchwoman from whom I hire this place has a little stepdaughter, and her name begins with 'E'.
"She is English.

I do not know how her father came to marry a Boer-woman.

It makes me feel so strange to put down that letter, that I can hardly go on writing 'E'.