"I was detained atfor several weeks by Gertrude's confinement. The childhappy being!died a week after its birth. Gertrude was still in bed, and unable to leave it, when I received a letter from Ellen, to say, that my mother was then staying at Toulouse, and dangerously ill; if I wished once more to see her, Ellen besought me to lose no time in setting off for the continent. You may imagine my situation, or rather you cannot, for you cannot conceive the smallest particle of that intense love I bore to Gertrude. To youto any other man, it might seem no extraordinary hardship to leave her even for an uncertain periodto me it was like tearing away the very life from my heart.