I have found myself, dear Charles, in the position of your advocate-a position from which my maiden delicacy, must, under other circumstances, have recoiled. I asked mamma if she did not sanction your suit, and if she had not approved of your addresses? Were not your intentions, I said, obvious and honourable as the day? Had she discovered any objection, any drawback in your position, character, or connexions? Mr. Thornley would consider himself ill treated: he had pressed me to name a day, and now we were to proceed to the continent, without any settled prospect of return. Did mamma consult her daughter's happiness-had she no regard for her hopes, fears, wishes, and expectations?

"To all my expostulations, and more than these, Thornley, dare I venture to repeat them, no reply or nothing satisfactory was given. 'My welfare,' my mother said, 'was in her hands, who would consult it as a mother? When she was young,' she said, 'she had never been

spoken to on the disposition of her person and affections. She did not pretend to follow the same course with me, but she thought she should at least have a voice. If I were not satisfied, she could not help it: come what might, she would not be diverted from her purpose!'

"So you see my Charles, that I am again to leave you—again, it would seem, and more hopelessly than ever, to part from you. When I was a girl, a child-I am not very old yet, the passion which enthrals me did not fill my heart. I loved you, but I loved you as a child, a pureminded, innocent, unwitting child; but now, I am a woman, and love you as a woman-as one who can appreciate, and reverence, and return, Charles, the passion with which you yourself do burn. Ah, Charles, I cannot leave my mother my poor, fond, weak, yet still loving mother! Perhaps the day may come, but ah me, it may never come, when I shall be thine, and thou mine, without any one to sever us or

to interfere with that sacred relation which no

human hand may interrupt.

"I refrained from sending this letter, my beloved, till I should be able to communicate something more definite. Our retirement has been disposed of; and we are merely remaining till the few arrangements necessary, can be completed ere our departure. Emily Wriothesley, returned from her short marriage excursion, has besought, in the most moving terms, that I should visit her, accompanied by my mother; but mamma is deaf to every entreaty. She will repair to the continent and no other where. To-morrow every thing will be settled, and I expect we shall set out. Alas, despair would seize upon me, did I not think of that good day, when no one will try to snatch me from you. Now, those lessons of resolution and fortitude which I derived from your instructions

and the books which you urged me to peruse, come to my aid. I cannot forbear sorrow--I cannot wholly cease to repine; but my grief is not without its balm: I know that I must perform my duty to the great Author of my being, and to that humbler parent who claims my next attention and submission.

*

My

"This concluding paragraph, dearest Charles, is written on the eve of our embarkation, amid the bustle and confusion of a sea-port inn. It was well you could not come to me. mother's measures were so abrupt, her transitions so rapid, that you would but have arrived amid empty walls. I could not have given you any certain address. I know not whether my poor mother wished to baffle my presumed intentions; but the precipitancy of her movements had precisely this effect. Your presence, my Thornley, would scarcely have made her swerve;

Ah,

and it would but have wrung my heart to part from you in circumstances like these. comfort your poor heart; let the grief and sympathy which you must feel for me, be stayed by the reflection that we shall meet again. Yes, Thornley, neither oceans-nor seas-nor torrents-nor mighty rivers-nor lofty mountains-nor ice-nor snow-nor deserts-nor wide-spread continents, shall long separate me from you. First, my duty to my mother, then to you-Oh, my Charles. My life-blood shall ebb away, and my soul quit its tenement, ere I forget that you are my own sworn Thornley, the chosen one of my young heart. Ah, Charles, you it was who taught me first to love, and, indifferent to all besides, to look upon you with an affection that nothing can impair. Can I ever forget those first soft emotions, the flutterings, the heavings, the unimaginable thrills of passionate delight with which you alone of all men first inspired me. I can yield you no intimation, dearest, of our eventual destination :