One
was my much-offending and deeply-suffering father. The other--O, Miriam,
to think of him is crime; but in his life, and that alone, I live. I
send you Praed's last beautiful little song--'Tell him I love him yet.'
It will tell you every thing. An answer I have scribbled to it as if
written by a man. Keep both, and when I am dead, should you survive me,
dear, lay them if you can in my coffin, close, close to my heart!"
Three years more, and Bertie is in Rome, independent, at last, through
her own exertions, and able to gratify her tastes. I receive thence
statues, and pictures, and cameos, all exquisite of their kind, her
princely gifts, her legacies. Then comes a long silence. She knew what
faith was mine when she last abode, beneath my roof and made herself a
little impertinently merry at my expense in consequence of this new
order of things.
Now comes a letter (a paper envelope accompanying it)--Bertie La Vigne
has entered the Catholic Church, through baptism and confirmation, so
briefly states the letter written in her own hand and of date some
months back, retained; no doubt, through forgetfulness, until reminded.
The paper, of recent issue, tells of the ceremony at St. Peter's, which
admitted to the novitiate several noble ladies, native and foreign, and
among the rest an _artist_ of merit, Miss Lavinia La Vigne, of Georgia,
United States of America.
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