Letter LII

To Mrs. Fielder

Philadelphia, December 16.

It is not improbable that, as soon as you recognise the hand that wrote this letter, you will throw it unread into the fire; yet it comes not to soothe resentment, or to supplicate for mercy. It seeks not a favourable audience. It wishes not--because the wish would be chimerical--to have its assertions believed. It expects not even to be read. All I hope is, that, though neglected, despised, and discredited for the present, it may not be precipitately destroyed or utterly forgotten. The time will come when it will be read with a different spirit.

You inform me that Miss Jessup has denied her letter, and imputes to me the wickedness of forging her name to a false confession. You are justly astonished at the iniquity and folly of what you deem my artifice. This astonishment, when you look back upon my past misconduct, is turned from me to yourself; from my folly to your own credulity, that was, for a moment, made the dupe of my contrivances.

I can say nothing that will or that ought--that is my peculiar misery,--that ought, considering the measure of my real guilt, to screen me from this charge. There is but one event that can shake your opinion. An event that is barely possible; that may not happen, if it happen at all, till the lapse of years; and from which, even if I were alive, I could not hope to derive advantage. Miss Jessup's conscience may awaken time enough to enable her to undeceive you, and to repent of her second as well as her first fraud.

If that event ever takes place, perhaps this letter may still exist to bear testimony to my rectitude. Thrown aside and long forgotten, or never read, chance may put it in your way once more. Time, that soother of resentment as well as lessener of love, and the perseverance of your daughter in the way you prescribe, may soften your asperities even towards me. A generous heart like yours will feel an emotion of joy that I have not been quite as guilty as you had reason to believe.

Give me leave, madam, to anticipate that moment. The number of my consolations are few. Your enmity I rank among my chief misfortunes, and the more so because I deserve much, though not all your enmity. The persuasion that the time will come when you will acquit me of this charge, is, even now, a comforter. This is more desirable to me, since it will relieve your daughter from one among the many evils in which she has been involved by the vices and infirmities of

H. COLDEN.

Letter LIII

To James Montford

Philadelphia, December 17.

I sought relief a second time to my drooping heart, by a walk in the fields. Returning, I met Harriet Thomson in the street. The meeting was somewhat unexpected. Since we parted at Baltimore, I imagined she had returned to her old habitation in Jersey. I knew she was pretty much a stranger in this city. Night had already come on, and she was alone. She greeted me with visible satisfaction; and, though I was very little fit for society, especially of those who loved me not, I thought common civility required me to attend her home.

I never saw this woman till I met her lately at her brother's bedside. Her opinions of me were all derived from unfavourable sources, and I knew, from good authority, that she regarded me as a dangerous and hateful character. I had even, accidentally, heard her opinion of the affair between Jane and me. Jane was severely censured for credulity and indiscretion, but some excuse was allowed to her on the score of the greater guilt that was placed to my account.

Her behaviour, when we first met, was somewhat conformable to these impressions. A good deal of coldness and reserve in her deportment, which I was sometimes sorry for, as she seems an estimable creature; meek, affectionate, tender, passionately loving her brother; convinced, from the hour of her first arrival, that his disease was a hopeless one, yet exerting a surprising command over her feelings, and performing every office of a nurse with skill and firmness.

Insensibly the distance between us grew less. A participation in the same calamity, and the counsel and aid which her situation demanded, forced her to lay aside some of her reserve. Still, however, it seemed but a submission to necessity; and all advances were made with an ill grace.

She was often present when her brother turned the discourse upon religious subjects. I have long since abjured the vanity of disputation. There is no road to truth but by meditation,-severe, intense, candid, and dispassionate. What others say on doubtful subjects, I shall henceforth lay up as materials for meditation.

I listened to my dying friend's arguments and admonitions, I think I may venture to say, with a suitable spirit. The arrogant or disputatious passions could not possibly find place in a scene like this. Even if I thought him in the wrong, what but brutal depravity could lead me to endeavour to shake his belief at a time when sickness had made his judgment infirm, and when his opinion supplied his sinking heart with confidence and joy?

But, in truth, I was far from thinking him in the wrong. At any time I should have allowed infinite, plausibility and subtlety to his reasonings, and at this time I confessed them to be weighty. Whether they were most weighty in the scale could be only known by a more ample and deliberate view and comparison than it was possible, with the spectacle of a dying friend before me, and with so many solicitudes and suspenses about me respecting Jane, to bestow on them. Meanwhile, I treasured them up, and determined, as I told him, that his generous efforts for my good should not be thrown away.

At first, his sister was very uneasy when her brother entered on the theme nearest to his friendly heart. She seemed apprehensive of dispute and contradiction. This apprehension was quickly removed, and she thenceforth encouraged the discourse. She listened with delight and eagerness, and her eye, frequently, when my friend's eloquence was most affecting, appealed to me. It sometimes conveyed a meaning far more powerful than her brother's lips, and expressed at once the strongest conviction of the truth of his words, and the most fervent desire that they might convince me. Her natural modesty, joined, no doubt, to her disesteem of my character, prevented her from mixing in discourse.

She greeted me at this meeting with a frankness which I did not expect. A disposition to converse, and attentiveness to the few words that I had occasion to say, were very evident. I was just then in the most dejected and forlorn state imaginable. My heart panted for some friendly bosom, into which I might pour my cares. I had reason to esteem the purity, sweetness, and amiable qualities of this good girl. Her aversion to me naturally flowed from these qualities, while an abatement of that aversion was flattering to me, as the triumph of feeling over judgment.

I should have left her at the door of her lodgings, but she besought me to go in so earnestly, that my facility, rather than my inclination, complied. She saw that I was absent and disturbed. I never read compassion and (shall I say?) good-will in any eye more distinctly than in hers.

The conversation for a time was vague and trite. Insensibly, the scenes lately witnessed were recalled, not without many a half-stifled sigh and ill-disguised tear on her part. Some arrangements as to the letters and papers of her brother were suggested. I expressed a wish to have my letters restored to me; I alluded to those letters, written in the sanguine insolence of youth and with the dogmatic rage upon me, that have done me so much mischief with Mrs. Fielder. I had not thought of them before; but now it occurred to me that they might as well be destroyed.

This insensibly led the conversation into more interesting topics. I could not suppress my regret that I had ever written some things in those letters, and informed her that my view in taking them back was to doom them to that oblivion from which it would have been happy for me if they never had been called.

After many tacit intimations, much reluctance and timidity to inquire and communicate, I was greatly surprised to discover that these letters had been seen by her; that Mrs. Fielder's character was not unknown to her; that she was no stranger to her brother's disclosures to that lady.

Without directly expressing her thoughts, it was easy to perceive that her mind was full of ideas produced by these letters, by her brother's discourse, and by curiosity as to my present opinions. Her modesty laid restraint on her lips. She was fearful, I supposed, of being thought forward and impertinent.

I endeavoured to dissipate these apprehensions. All about this girl was, on this occasion, remarkably attractive. I loved her brother, and his features still survive in her. The only relation she has left is a distant one, on whose regard and protection she has therefore but slender claims. Her mind is rich in all the graces of ingenuousness and modesty. The curiosity she felt respecting me made me grateful as for a token of regard. I was therefore not backward to unfold the true state of my mind.

Now and then she made seasonable and judicious comments on what I said. Was there any subject of inquiry more momentous than the truth of religion? If my doubts and heresies had involved me in difficulties, was not the remedy obvious and easy?. Why not enter on regular discussions, and, having candidly and deliberately formed my creed, adhere to it frankly, firmly, and consistently? A state of doubt and indecision was, in every view, hurtful, criminal, and ignominious. Conviction, if it were in favour of religion, would insure me every kind of happiness. It would forward even those schemes of temporal advantage on which I might be intent. It would reconcile those whose aversion arose from difference of opinion; and in cases where it failed to benefit my worldly views, it would console me for my disappointment.

If my inquiries should establish an irreligious conviction, still, any form of certainty was better than doubt. The love of truth and the consciousness of that certainty would raise me above hatred and slander. I should then have some kind of principle by which to regulate my conduct; I should then know on what foundation to build. To fluctuate, to waver, to postpone inquiry, was more criminal than any kind of opinion candidly investigated and firmly adopted, and would more effectually debar me from happiness. At my age, with my talents and inducements, it was sordid, it was ignoble, it was culpable, to allow indifference or indolence to slacken my zeal.

These sentiments were conveyed in various broken hints and modest interrogatories. While they mortified, they charmed me; they enlightened me while they perplexed. I came away with my soul roused by a new impulse. I have emerged from a dreary torpor, not indeed to tranquillity or happiness, but to something less fatal, less dreadful.

Would you think that a ray of hope has broken in upon me? Am I not still, in some degree, the maker of my fortune? Why mournfully ruminate on the past, instead of looking to the future? How wretched, how criminal, how infamous, are my doubts!

Alas! and is this the first time that I have been visited by such thoughts? How often has this transient hope, this momentary zeal, started into being, hovered in my fancy, and vanished! Thus will it ever be.

Need I mention--but I will not look back. To what end? Shall I grieve or rejoice at that power of now and then escaping from the past? Could it operate to my amendment, memory should be ever busy; but I fear that it would only drive me to desperation or madness.

H. C.

Letter LIV

Philadelphia, December 19.

I have just returned from a visit to my new friend. I begin to think that if I had time to cultivate her good opinion I should gain as much of it as I deserve. Her good-will, her sympathy at least, might be awakened in my favour.

We have had a long conversation. Her distance and reserve are much less than they were. She blames yet pities me. I have been very communicative, and have offered her the perusal of all the letters that I have lately received from Mrs. Talbot as vouchers for my sincerity.

She listened favourably to my account of the unhappy misapprehensions into which Mrs. Fielder had fallen. She was disposed to be more severe on Miss Jessup's imposture than even my irritated passions had been.

She would not admit that Mrs. Fielder's antipathy to my alliance with her daughter was without just grounds. She thought that everlasting separation was best for us both. A total change of my opinions on moral subjects might perhaps, in time, subdue the mother's aversion to me; but this change must necessarily be slow and gradual. I was indeed already, from my own account, far from being principled against religion; but this was only a basis whereon to build the hope of future amendment. No present merit could be founded on my doubts.

I spared not myself in my account of former follies. The recital made her very solemn. I had--I had, indeed, been very faulty; my present embarrassments were the natural and just consequences of my misconduct. I had not merited a different destiny. I was unworthy of the love of such a woman as Jane. I was not qualified to make her happy. I ought to submit to banishment, not only as to a punishment justly incurred, but in gratitude to one whose genuine happiness, taking into view her mother's character and the sacrifices to which her choice of me would subject her, would be most effectually consulted by my exile.

This was an irksome lesson. She had the candour not to expect my cordial concurrence in such sentiments, yet endeavoured in her artless manner to enforce them. She did not content herself with placing the matter in this light. She still continued to commend the design of a distant voyage, even should I intend one day to return. The scheme was likely to produce health and pleasure to me. It offered objects which a rational curiosity must hold dear. The interval might not pass away unpropitiously to me. Time might effect desirable changes in Mrs. Fielder's sentiments and views. A thousand accidents might occur to level those obstacles which were now insuperable. Pity and complacency might succeed to abhorrence and scorn. Gratitude and admiration for the patience, meekness, and self-sacrifices of the daughter might gradually bring about the voluntary surrender of her enmities; besides, that event must one day come which will place her above the influence of all mortal cares and passions.

These conversations have not been without their influence. Yes, my friend, my mind is less gloomy and tumultuous than it was. I look forward to this voyage with stronger hopes.

Methinks I would hear once more from Jane. Could she be persuaded cheerfully to acquiesce in her mother's will; reserve herself for fortunate contingencies; confide in my fidelity; and find her content in the improvement of her time and fortune, in befriending the destitute, relieving, by her superfluities, the needy, and consoling the afflicted by her sympathy, advice, and succour, would she not derive happiness from these sources, though disappointed in the wish nearest her heart?

Might I not have expected a letter ere this? But she knows not where I am,--probably imagines me at my father's house. Shall I not venture to write? a last and long farewell? Yet have I not said already all that the occasion will justify? But, if I would write, I know not how to address her. It seems she has not gone to New York. Her mother has a friend in Jersey, whither she prevailed on Jane to accompany her. I suppose it would be no arduous undertaking to trace her footsteps and gain an interview, and perhaps I shall find the temptation irresistible.

Stephen has just now told me, by letter, that he sails in ten days. There will be time enough to comply with your friendly invitation. My sister and you may expect to see me by Saturday night. In the arms of my true friends, I will endeavour to forget the vexations that at present prey upon the peace of

Your

H. C.

Letter LV

To Henry Colden

My mother allows me, and even requires me, to write to you. My reluctance to do so is only overcome by the fear of her displeasure; yet do not mistake me, my friend. Infer not from this reluctance that the resolution of being henceforward all that my mother wishes can be altered by any effort of yours.

Alas! how vainly do I boast my inflexibility! My safety lies only in filling my ears with my mother's remonstrances and shutting them against your persuasive accents. I have therefore resigned myself wholly to my mother's government. I have consented to be inaccessible to your visits or letters.

I have few claims on your gratitude or generosity; yet may I not rely on the humanity of your temper? To what frequent and severe tests has my caprice already subjected your affection! and has it not remained unshaken and undiminished? Let me hope that you will not withhold this last proof of your affection for me.

It would greatly console me to know that you are once more on filial and friendly terms with your father. Let me persuade you to return to him; to beseech his favour. I hope the way to reconcilement has already been paved by the letter jointly addressed to him by my mother and myself; that nothing is wanting but a submissive and suitable deportment on your part, to restore you to the station you possessed before you had any knowledge of me. Let me exact from you this proof of your regard for me. It is the highest proof which it will henceforth be in your power to offer, or that can ever be received by

JANE TALBOT.

Letter LVI

To Mrs. Montford

Madam:--

Philadelphia, October 7.

It is with extreme reluctance that I venture to address you in this manner. I cannot find words to account for or apologize. But, if you be indeed the sister of Henry Golden, you cannot be ignorant of me, and of former transactions between us, and especially the circumstance that now compels me to write: you can be no stranger to his present situation.

Can you forgive this boldness in an absolute stranger to your person but not to your virtues? I have heard much of you, from one in whom I once had a little interest; who honoured me with his affection.

I know that you lately possessed a large share of that affection. I doubt not that you still retain it, and are able to tell me what has become of him.

I have a long time struggled with myself and my fears in silence. I know how unbecoming this address must appear to you, and yet, persuaded that my character and my relation to your brother are well known to you, I have been able to curb my anxieties no longer.

Do then, my dearest madam, gratify my curiosity, and tell me, without delay, what has become of your brother.

J. TALBOT.

Letter LVII

To Jane Talbot

My dear Madam:--

New York, October 9.

You judge truly when you imagine that your character and history are not unknown to me; and such is my opinion of you, that there is probably no person in the world more solicitous for your happiness, and more desirous to answer any inquiries in a manner agreeable to you.

Mr. Colden has made no secret to us of the relation in which he stood to you. We are well acquainted with the cause of your late separation. Will you excuse me for expressing the deep regret which that event gave me? That regret is the deeper, since the measures which he immediately adopted have put it out of his power to profit by any change in your views.

My husband's brother being on the point of embarking in a voyage to the western coast of America and to China, Mr. Golden prevailed upon his friends to permit him to embark also, as a joint adventurer in the voyage. They have been gone already upwards of a year. We have not heard of them since their touching at Tobago and Brazil.

The voyage will be very tedious; but, as it will open scenes of great novelty to the mind of our friend, and as it may not be unprofitable to him, we were the more easily disposed to acquiesce.

Permit me, madam, to proffer you my warmest esteem and my kindest services. Your letter I regard as a flattering proof of your good opinion, which I shall be most happy to deserve and to improve, by answering every inquiry you may be pleased to make respecting one for whom I have entertained the affection becoming a sister.

I am, &c.

M. MONTFORD.

P.S.--Mr. Montford desires to join me in my offers of service, and in my good wishes.

Letter LVIII

To Mrs. Montford

Philadelphia, October 12.

Dear Madam:--

How shall I thank you for the kind and delicate manner in which you have complied with my request? You will not be surprised, nor, I hope, offended, that I am emboldened to address you once more.

I see that I need not practise towards you a reserve at all times foreign to my nature, and now more painful than at any other time, as my soul is torn with emotions which I am at liberty to disclose to no other human creature. Will you be my friend? Will you permit me to claim your sympathy and consolation? As I told you before, I am thoroughly acquainted with your merits, and one of the felicities which I promised myself from a nearer alliance with Mr. Colden was that of numbering myself among your friends.

You have deprived me of some hope by the information you give; but you have at least put an end to a suspense more painful than the most dreadful certainty could be.

You say that you know all our concerns. In pity to my weakness, will you give me some particulars of my friend? I am extremely anxious to know many things in your power to communicate.

Perhaps you know the contents of my last letter to him, and of his answer. I know you condemn me. You think me inconsiderate and cruel in writing such a letter; and my heart does not deny the charge. Yet my motives were not utterly ungenerous. I could not bear to reduce the man I loved to poverty. I could not bear that he should incur the violence and curses of his father. I fondly thought myself the only obstacle to reconcilement, and was willing, whatever it cost me, to remove that obstacle.

What will become of me, if my fears should now be realized?--if the means which I used with no other view than to reconcile him to his family should have driven him away from them and from his country forever? I thank my God that I was capable of abandoning him on no selfish or personal account. The maledictions of my own mother; the scorn of the world; the loss of friends, reputation, and fortune, weighed nothing with me. Great as these evils were, I could have cheerfully sustained them for his sake. What I did was in oblivion of self; was from a duteous regard to his genuine and lasting happiness. Alas! I have, perhaps, mistaken the means, and cruel will, I fear, be the penalty of my error.

Tell me, my dear friend, was not Colden reconciled to his father before he went? When does he mean to return? What said he, what thought he, of my conduct? Did he call me ungrateful and capricious? Did he vow never to see or think of me more?

I have regarded the promise that I made to the elder Colden, and to my mother, as sacred. The decease of the latter has, in my own opinion, absolved me from any obligation except that of promoting my own happiness and that of him whom I love. I shall not now reduce him to indigence, and, that consequence being precluded, I cannot doubt of his father's acquiescence.

Ah, dear madam, I should not have been so long patient, had I not, as it now appears, been lulled into a fatal mistake. I could not taste repose till I was, as I thought, certainly informed that he continued to reside in his father's house. This proof of reconciliation, and the silence which, though so near him, he maintained towards me, both before and subsequently to my mother's death, contributed to persuade me that his condition was not unhappy, and especially that either his resentment or his prudence had made him dismiss me from his thoughts.

I have lately, to my utter astonishment, discovered that Colden, immediately after his last letter to me, went upon some distant voyage, whence, though a twelvemonth has since passed, he has not yet returned. Hence the boldness of this address to you, whom I know only by rumour.

You will, I doubt not, easily imagine to yourself my feelings, and will be good enough to answer my inquiries, if you have any compassion for your

J. T.

Letter LIX

To Jane Talbot

New York, October 15.

I HASTEN, my dear madam, to reply to your letter. The part you have assigned me I will most cheerfully perform to the utmost of my power, but very much regret that I have not more agreeable tidings to communicate.

Having said that all the transactions between you and my brother are known to me, I need not apologize for alluding to events, which I could not excuse myself for doing without being encouraged by the frankness and solicitude which your own pen has expressed.

Immediately after the determination of his fate in regard to you, he came to this city. He favoured us with the perusal of your letters. We entirely agreed with him in applauding the motives which influenced your conduct. We had no right to accuse you of precipitation or inconsistency. That heart must indeed be selfish and cold which could not comprehend the horror which must have seized you on hearing of his father's treatment. You acted, in the first tumults of your feelings, as every woman would have acted. That you did not immediately perceive the little prospect there was that a breach of this nature would be repaired, or that Colden would make use of your undesired and unsought-for renunciation as a means of reconcilement with his father, was no subject of surprise or blame. These reflections could not occur to you but in consequence of some intimations from others.

Henry Colden was no indolent or mercenary creature, No one more cordially detested the life of dependence than he. He always thought that his father had discharged all the duties of that relation in nourishing his childhood and giving him a good education. Whatever has been since bestowed, he considered as voluntary and unrequited bounty; has received it with irksomeness and compunction; and, whatever you may think of the horrors of indigence, it was impossible to have placed him in a more painful situation than under his father's roof.

We could not but deeply regret the particular circumstances under which he left his father's house; but the mere leaving it, and the necessity which thence arose of finding employment and subsistence for himself, was not at all to be regretted.

The consequences of your mother's letter to the father produced no resentment in the son. He had refused what he had a right to refuse, and what had been pressed upon the giver rather than sought by him. The mere separation was agreeable to Colden, and the rage that accompanied it was excited by the young man's steadiness in his fidelity to you.

You were not aware that this cause of anger could not be removed by any thing done by you. Golden was not sensible of any fault. There was nothing, therefore, for which he could crave pardon. Blows and revilings had been patiently endured, but he was actuated by no tame or servile spirit. He never would expose himself to new insults. Though always ready to accept apology and grant an oblivion of the past, he never would avow compunction which he did not feel, or confess that he had deserved the treatment which he had received.

All this it was easy to suggest to your reflections, and I endeavoured to persuade him to write a second letter; but he would not. "No," said he, "she has made her election. If no advantage is taken of her tenderness and pity, she will be happy in her new scheme. Shall I subject her to new trials, new mortifications? Can I flatter myself with being able to reward her by my love for the loss of every other comfort? No. Whatever she feels for me, I am not her supreme passion. Her mother is preferred to me. That her present resolution puts out of all doubt. All upbraiding and repining from me would be absurd. What can I say in favour of my attachment to her, which she may not, with equal reason, urge in favour of her attachment to her mother? The happiness of one or other must be forfeited. Shall I not rather offer than demand the sacrifice? And what are my boasts of magnanimity if I do not strive to lessen the difficulties of her choice, and persuade her that, in gratifying her mother, she inflicts no exquisite or lasting misery on me?

"I am not so blind but that I can foresee the effects on my tranquillity of time and variety of object. If I go this voyage, I may hope to acquire resignation much, sooner than by staying at home. To leave these shores is, in every view, best for me. I can do nothing, while here, for my own profit, and every eye I meet humbles and distresses me. At present, I do not wish ever to return; but I suppose the absence and adventures of a couple of years may change my feelings in that respect. My condition, too, by some chance, may be bettered. I may come back, and offer myself to her, without offering poverty and contempt at the same time. Time, or some good fortune, may remove the mother's prejudices. All this is possible; but, if it never takes place, if my condition never improves, I will never return home."

When we urged to him the propriety of apprizing you of his views, not only for your sake, but for his own,--"What need is there? Has she not prohibited all intercourse between us? Have I not written the last letter she will consent to receive? On my own account, I have nothing to hope. I have stated my return as a mere possibility. I do not believe I shall ever return. If I did expect it, I know Jane too well to have any fears of her fidelity. While I am living, or as long as my death is uncertain, her heart will be mine, and she will reserve herself for me."

I know you will excuse me, madam, for being thus particular. I thought it best to state the views of our friend in his own words. From these your judgment will enable you to form the truest conclusions.

The event that has since happened has probably removed the only obstacle to your mutual happiness; nor am I without the hope of seeing him one day return to be made happy by your favour. As several passages were expected to be made between China and Nootka, that desirable event cannot be expected to be very near.

M. M.

Letter LX

To Mrs. Montford

Philadelphia, October 20.

AH, dear madam! how much has your letter afflicted, how much has it consoled me!

You have then some hope of his return; but, you say, 'twill be a long time first. He has gone where I cannot follow him; to the end of the world; where even a letter cannot find him; into unwholesome climates; through dangerous elements; among savages----

Alas! I have no hope. Among so many perils, it cannot be expected that he should escape. And did he not say that he meant not to return?

Yet one thing consoles me. He left not his curses or reproaches on my head. Kindly, generously, and justly didst thou judge of my fidelity, Henry. While thou livest, and as long as I live, will I cherish thy image.

I am coming to pass the winter in your city. I adopt this scheme merely because it will give me your company. I feel as if you were the only friend I have in the world. Do not think me forward or capricious. I will not deny that you owe your place in my affections chiefly to your relation to the wanderer; but no matter whence my attachment proceeds. I feel that it is strong; merely selfish, perhaps; the child of a distracted fancy; the prop on which a sinking heart relies in its uttermost extremity.

Reflection stings me to the quick, but it does not deny me some consolation. The memory of my mother calls forth tears, but they are not tears of bitterness. To her, at least, I have not been deficient in dutiful observance. I have sacrificed my friend and myself, but it was to her peace. The melancholy of her dying scene will ever be cheered in my remembrance by her gratitude and blessing. Her last words were these:--

"Thou hast done much for me, my child. I begin to fear that I have exacted too much. Your sweetness, your patience, have wrung my heart with compunction.

"I have wronged thee, Jane. I have wronged the absent; I greatly fear, I have. Forgive me. If you ever meet, entreat him to forgive me, and recompense yourself and him for all your mutual sufferings.

"I hope all, though sorrowful, has been for the best. I hope that angelic sweetness which I have witnessed will continue when I am gone. That belief only can make my grave peaceful.

"I leave you affluence and honour at least, I leave you the means of repairing my injury. That is my comfort; but forgive me, Jane. Say, my child, you forgive me for what has passed."

She stretched her hand to me, which I bathed with my tears.--But this subject afflicts me too much.

Give my affectionate compliments to Mr. Montford, and tell me that you wish to see your

JANE.

Letter LXI

To Mrs. Talbot

New York, October 22.

You tell me, my dear Jane, that you are coming to reside in this city; but you have not gratified my impatience by saying how soon. Tell me when you propose to come. Is there not something in which I can be of service to you?--some preparations to be made?

Tell me the day when you expect to arrive among us, that I may wait on you as soon as possible.

I shall embrace my sister with a delight which I cannot express. I will not part with the delightful hope of one day calling you truly such.

Accept the fraternal regards of Mr. Montford.

M.M.

Letter LXII

To Mrs. Montford

Banks of Delaware, September 5.

Be not anxious for me, Mary. I hope to experience very speedy relief from the wholesome airs that perpetually fan this spot. Your apprehensions from the influence of these scenes on my fancy are groundless. They breathe nothing over my soul but delicious melancholy. I have done expecting and repining, you know. Four years have passed since I was here,--since I met your brother under these shades.

I have already visited every spot which has been consecrated by our interviews. I have found the very rail which, as I well remember, we disposed into a bench, at the skirt of a wood bordering a stubble-field. The same pathway through the thicket where I have often walked with him, I now traverse morning and night.

Be not uneasy, I repeat, on my account. My present situation is happier than the rest of the world can afford. I tell you I have done repining. I have done sending forth my views into an earthly futurity. Anxiety, I hope, is now at an end with me.

What do you think I design to do? I assure you it is no new scheme. Ever since my mother's death, I have thought of it at times. It has been my chief consolation. I never mentioned it to you, because I knew you would not approve it. It is this.

To purchase this farm and take up my abode upon it for the rest of my life. I need not become farmer, you know. I can let the ground to some industrious person, upon easy terms. I can add all the furniture and appendages to this mansion, which my convenience requires. Luckily, Sandford has for some time entertained thoughts of parting with it, and I believe he could not find a more favourable purchaser.

You will tell me that the fields are sterile, the barn small, the stable crazy, the woods scanty. These would be powerful objections to a mere tiller of the earth, but they are none to me.

'Tis true, it is washed by a tide-water. The bank is low, and the surrounding country sandy and flat, and you may think I ought rather to prefer the beautiful variety of hill and dale, luxuriant groves and fertile pastures, which abound in other parts of the country. But you know, my friend, the mere arrangement of inanimate objects--wood, grass, and rock--is nothing. It owes its power of bewitching us to the memory, the fancy, and the heart. No spot of earth can possibly teem with as many affecting images as this; for here it was----

But my eyes already overflow. In the midst of these scenes, remembrance is too vivid to allow me thus to descant on them. At a distance I could talk of them without that painful emotion, and now it would be useless repetition. Have I not, more than once, related to you every dialogue, described every interview?

God bless you, dear Mary, and continue to you all your present happiness.

Don't forget to write to me. Perhaps some tidings may reach you--Down, thou flattering hope! thou throbbing heart, peace! He is gone. These eyes will never see him more. Had an angel whispered the fatal news in my wakeful ear, I should not more firmly believe it.

And yet--But I must not heap up disappointments for myself. Would to Heaven there was no room for the least doubt,--that, one way or the other, his destiny was ascertained!

How agreeable is your intelligence that Mr. Cartwright has embarked, after taking cheerful leave of you! It grieves me, my friend, that you do not entirely approve of my conduct towards that man. I never formally attempted to justify myself. 'Twas a subject on which I could not give utterance to my thoughts. How irksome is blame from those we love! there is instantly suspicion that blame is merited. A new process of self-defence is to be gone over, and ten to one but that, after all our efforts, there are some dregs at the bottom of the cup.

I was half willing to found my excuse on the hope of the wanderer's return; but I am too honest to urge a false plea. Besides, I know that certainty, in that respect, would make no difference; and would it not be fostering in him a hope that my mind might be changed in consequence of being truly informed respecting your brother's fate?

I persuade myself that a man of Cartwright's integrity and generosity cannot be made lastingly unhappy by me. I know but of one human being more excellent. Though his sensibility be keen, I trust to his fortitude.

It is true, Mary, what you have heard. Cartwright was my school-fellow. When we grew to an age that made it proper to frequent separate schools, he did not forget me. The schools adjoined each other, and he used to resist all the enticements of prison-base and cricket for the sake of waiting at the door of our school till it broke up, and then accompanying me home.

These little gallant offices made him quite singular among his compeers, and drew on him and on me a good deal of ridicule. But he did not mind it. I thought him, and everybody else thought him, a most amiable and engaging youth, though only twelve or thirteen years old.

'Tis impossible to say what might have happened had he not gone with his mother to Europe; or rather, it is likely, I think, that our fates, had he stayed among us, would in time have been united. But he went away when I was scarcely fourteen. At parting, I remember, we shed a great many tears and exchanged a great many kisses, and promises not to forget. And that promise never was broken by me. He was always dear to my remembrance.

Time has only improved all the graces of the boy. I will not conceal from you, Mary, that nothing but a preoccupied heart has been an obstacle to his wishes. If that impediment had not existed, my reverence for his worth, my gratitude for his tenderness, would have made me comply. I will even go further; I will say to you, though my regard to his happiness will never suffer me to say it to him, that if three years more pass away, and I am fully assured that your brother's absence will be perpetual, and Cartwright's happiness is still in my hands,--that then--I possibly may--But I am sure that, before that time, his hand and his heart will be otherwise disposed of. Most sincerely shall I rejoice at the last event.

All are well here. My friend is as good-natured and affectionate as ever, and sings as delightfully and plays as adroitly. She humours me with all my favourite airs, twice a day. We have no strangers; no impertinents to intermeddle in our conversations and mar our enjoyments.

You know what turn my studies have taken, and what books I have brought with me. 'Tis remarkable what unlooked-for harvests arise from small and insignificant germs. My affections have been the stimulants to my curiosity. What was it induced me to procure maps and charts and explore the course of the voyager over seas and round capes? There was a time when these objects were wholly frivolous and unmeaning in my eyes; but now they gain my whole attention.

When I found that my happiness was embarked with your brother in a tedious and perilous voyage, was it possible to forbear collecting all the information attainable respecting his route, and the incidents likely to attend it? I got maps and charts, and books of voyages, and found a melancholy enjoyment in connecting the incidents and objects which they presented with the destiny of my friend. The pursuit of this chief and most interesting object has brought within view and prompted me to examine a thousand others, on which, without this original inducement, I should never have bestowed a thought.

The map of the world exists in my fancy in a most vivid and accurate manner. Repeated meditation on displays of shoal, sand-bank, and water, has created a sort of attachment to geography for its own sake. I have often reflected on the innumerable links in the chain of my ideas between my first eager examination of the route by sea between New York and Tobago, and yesterday's employment, when I was closely engaged in measuring the marches of Frederick across the mountains of Bohemia.

How freakish and perverse are the rovings of human curiosity! The surprise which Miss Betterton betrayed, when, in answer to her inquiries as to what study and what book I prized the most, you told her that I thought of little else than of the art of moving from shore to shore across the water, and that I pored over Cook's Voyages so much that I had gotten the best part of them by rote, was very natural. She must have been puzzled to conjecture what charms one of my sex could find in the study of maps and voyages. Once I should have been just as much puzzled myself. Adieu.

J. T.

Letter LXIII

To Mrs. Talbot

New York, October 1.

Be not angry with me, dear Jane. Yet I am sure, when you know, my offence, you will feel a great deal of indignation. You cannot be more angry with me than I am with myself. I do not know how to disclose the very rash thing I have done. If you knew my compunction, you would pity me.

Cartwright embarked on the day I mentioned, but remained for some days wind-bound at the Hook. Yesterday he unexpectedly made his appearance in our apartment, at the very moment when I was perusing your last letter. I was really delighted to see him, and the images connected with him, which your letter had just suggested, threw me off my guard. Finding by whom the letter was written, he solicited with the utmost eagerness the sight of it.

Can you forgive me? My heart overflowed with pity for the excellent man. I knew the transport one part of your letter would afford him. I thought that no injury, but rather happiness, would redound to yourself.

I now see that I was guilty of a most culpable breach of confidence in showing him your delicate confession; but I was bewitched, I think.

I can write of nothing else just now. Much as I dread your displeasure, I could not rest till I had acknowledged my fault and craved your pardon. Forgive, I beseech you, your

M. MONTFORD.