I see not a spot upon her full and gold-bespangled drapery.
All her perfumes breathe, and her eye glows with joy. . . . My
affectionate remembrances to your friend. You rightly felt how glad I
should be to be thought of in the happy hour. As far as bearing an
intelligent heart, I think I deserve to be esteemed a friend. And
thus in affection and prayer, dear Sophia,
Yours, MARGARET F.
A year or two later my father received the following letter from
her:--
DEAR MR. HAWTHORNE,--You must not think I have any black design
against your domestic peace. Neither am I the agent of any secret
tribunal of the dagger and cord; nor am I commissioned by the malice
of some baffled lover to make you wretched. Yet it may look so, when
you find me once again, in defiance of my failure last summer, despite
your letter of full exposition, once more attempting to mix a foreign
element in your well compounded cup. But indeed, oh severest and most
resolute man, these propositions are none of mine. How can I help it,
if gentle souls, ill at ease elsewhere, wish to rest with you upon the
margin of that sleepy stream? How can I help it if they choose me for
an interpreter? [A suggestion is then made, for the second time, that
my parents should admit a friend into the Old Manse as a boarder. The
notion was sometimes alluded to by my mother in after-years with
unfading horror.] I should like much to hear something about
yourselves; what the genius loci says, whether through voice of ghost,
or rat, or winter wind, or kettle-singing symphony to the happy duet;
and whether by any chance you sometimes give a thought to your friend
MARGARET.
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