TO Mrs. Saville, England

St. Petersburgh, Dec. 11th, 17-

You will rejoice to hear that no disaster has accompanied the commencement of an enterprise which you have regarded with such evil forebodings. I arrived here yesterday, and my first task is to assure my dear sister of my welfare and increasing confidence in the success of my undertaking.

I am already far north of London, and as I walk in the streets of Petersburgh, I feel a cold northern breeze play upon my cheeks, which braces my nerves and fills me with delight. Do you understand this feeling? This breeze, which has travelled from the regions towards which I am advancing, gives me a foretaste of those icy climes. Inspirited by this wind of promise, my daydreams become more fervent and vivid. I try in vain to be persuaded that the pole is the seat of frost and desolation; it ever presents itself to my imagination as the region of beauty and delight. There, Margaret, the sun is forever visible, its broad disk just skirting the horizon and diffusing a perpetual splendour. There—for with your leave, my my sister, I will put some trust in preceding navigators—there snow and frost are banished; and, sailing over a calm sea, we may be wafted to a land surpassing in wonders and in beauty every region hitherto discovered on the habitable globe. Its productions and features may be without example, as the phenomena of the heavenly bodies undoubtedly are in those undiscovered solitudes. What may not be expected in a country of eternal light? I may there discover the wondrous power which attracts the needle and may regulate a thousand celestial observations that require only this voyage to render their seeming eccentricities consistent forever. I shall satiate my ardent curiosity with the sight of a part of the world never before visited, and may tread a land never before imprinted by the foot of man. These are my enticements, and they are sufficient to conquer all fear of danger or death and to induce me to commence this laborious voyage with the joy a child feels when he embarks in a little boat, with his holiday mates, on an expedition of discovery up his native native river. But supposing all these conjectures to be false, you cannot contest the inestimable benefit which I shall confer on all mankind, to the last generation, by discovering a passage near the pole to those countries, to reach which at present so many months are requisite; or by ascertaining the secret of the magnet, which, if at all possible, can only be effected by an undertaking such as mine.

These reflections have dispelled the agitation with which I began my letter, and I feel my heart glow with an enthusiasm which elevates me to heaven, for nothing contributes so much to tranquillize the mind as a steady purpose—a point on which the soul may fix its intellectual eye. This expedition has been the favourite dream of my early years. I have read with ardour the accounts of the various voyages which have been made in the prospect of arriving at the North Pacific Ocean through the seas which surround the pole. You may remember that a history of all the voyages made for purposes of discovery composed the whole of our good Uncle Thomas’ library. My education was neglected, yet I was passionately fond of reading. These volumes were my study day and night, and my familiarity with them increased that regret which I had felt, as a child, on learning that my father’s dying injunction had forbidden my uncle to allow me to embark in a seafaring life.

‘Do you see her now?’

‘Yes. Leaning on your arm.’

‘But not the less my niece,’ cried Mrs. Maylie, folding the fainting girl in her arms; ‘not the less my dearest child. I would not lose her now, for all the treasures of the world. My sweet companion, my own dear girl!’

‘The only friend I ever had,’ cried Rose, clinging to her. ‘The kindest, best of friends. My heart will burst. I cannot bear all this.’

‘You have borne more, and have been, through all, the best and gentlest creature that ever shed happiness on every one she knew,’ said Mrs. Maylie, embracing her tenderly. ‘Come, come, my love, remember who this is who waits to clasp you in his arms, poor child! See here—look, look, my dear!’

‘Not aunt,’ cried Oliver, throwing his arms about her neck; ‘I’ll never call her aunt—sister, my own dear sister, that something taught my heart to love so dearly from the first! Rose, dear, darling Rose!’

Let the tears which fell, and the broken words which were exchanged in the long close embrace between the orphans, be sacred. A father, sister, and mother, were gained, and lost, in that one moment. Joy and grief were mingled in the cup; but there were no bitter tears: for even grief itself arose so softened, and clothed in such sweet and tender recollections, that it became a solemn pleasure, and lost all character of pain.

They were a long, long time alone. A soft tap at the door, at length announced that some one was without. Oliver opened it, glided away, and gave place to Harry Maylie.

‘I know it all,’ he said, taking a seat beside the lovely girl. ‘Dear Rose, I know it all.’

‘I am not here by accident,’ he added after a lengthened silence; ‘nor have I heard all this to–night, for I knew it yesterday—only yesterday. Do you guess that I have come to remind you of a promise?’

‘Stay,’ said Rose. ‘You DO know all.’

‘All. You gave me leave, at any time within a year, to renew the subject of our last discourse.’

‘I did.’

‘Not to press you to alter your determination,’ pursued the young man, ‘but to hear you repeat it, if you would. I was to lay whatever of station or fortune I might possess at your feet, and if you still adhered to your former determination, I pledged myself, by no word or act, to seek to change it.’

‘The same reasons which influenced me then, will influence me know,’ said Rose firmly. ‘If I ever owed a strict and rigid duty to her, whose goodness saved me from a life of indigence and suffering, when should I ever feel it, as I should to–night? It is a struggle,’ said Rose, ‘but one I am proud to make; it is a pang, but one my heart shall bear.’

‘The disclosure of to–night,’—Harry began.

‘The disclosure of to–night,’ replied Rose softly, ‘leaves me in the same position, with reference to you, as that in which I stood before.’