THE TRUE MAID OF HONOUR. were in a state of distraction and melancholy far from natural to her, for the difficulties opposing themselves to her union with Mr. Godolphin were such, that she began to consider whether it would not be better to relinquish the hope of ever becoming the wife of the man whose love she so fondly reci- procated. Her heart was torn with conflicting emotions ; she loved and was beloved, yet there was an apparently impassable barrier between her and happiness ; she wished to devote herself to an almost nun-like existence, but love and pity drew her towards the world she dreaded. "Most bitterly have I wept," she wrote to Evelyn, " to think how much of my heart he has, how little my blessed Saviour, who has loved and suffered for me so much more ; happy, ah happy are you, my friend, that are past that mighty love to the creature." Conscious that Evelyn would always oppose her wish to immure herself in a solitary dwelling, she went on a visit to her sister Henrietta-then Lady Yarborough -in Yorkshire, for a couple of months, during the summer of 1674, in order to accustom her friends to her absence ; and on her return, she could not conceal from him that she was bent on retiring to Hereford, to lead a life of self- denial, under the directionof the Dean of that place, who had long been her spiritual father. " The Lord help me, dear friend," she wrote again to Evelyn, " I know not what to determine ; sometimes I think one thing, sometimes another 29
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