'Tis the last day of winter and a most stormy one it has been. We thought, dearest, the spring had come--you said so for sure, but a glance at the driving snow will convince you of the fallacy of our hopes. Time does fly; you tell me so in all your letters, but indeed you need not remind me of that. I am sorry and glad, too--its flight will bring you to me, but will also take me from my idol home. I do try to convince myself that I have grieved enough about that last mentioned, but sometimes my heart will ache at the prospect, in spite of my best efforts to control its emotions. If I did not think you loved me very dearly I could not, oh, dear Edward, I could not go. I don't think so much on it now, for some weeks past. I hope the bitterness is past, and you may not hear me speak many more regrets.

Excerpt from p. 174 Daughter of Adena, © 2005 Charlotte W. Wells.

I feel a loneliness here, which you cannot imagine. My only sister is far away, and brothers I have none. One of my two darlings [Charley] is also far away, and the house which was once my home is before my sight, to me, desolate. And you, who are the only human being who can talk to me in the language of the heart, or holds the power to restore my lost home, are too, absent, and can be spoken to only in these cold tracings of the pen. Ah! my dear Margaret, there is a loneliness which you have never felt -- may, and I hope, never will feel. The loneliness of feeling that there is not one on earth to whom you can pour out the feelings of a heart, warm to all, that would receive it kindly. While I have you to speak to and write to, I can never feel this again.

Excerpt from p. 109 Daughter of Adena, © 2005 Charlotte W. Wells.

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