LETTER X.

THE ANSWER.

I FEAR I cannot relieve you: I wish I could relieve myself. For though I am told that Lady Bracebridge's letter was most worthy a woman of sense as well as piety, entreating her brother to forbear destroying his heart, by cherishing either its sorrow or its resentments, I have neither seen it nor the answer.

Oldacre, who has read both, tells me they are each of them characteristic; though I should think, from the account, the resentments of Penruddock are deeper than I had supposed. In truth, his sensibility is what I have told you, morbid. He forgives, but cannot forget. I had hoped there was no difference between the two; but I see there is, and a very considerable one. I am, at least, as anxious to see these letters as you yourself.

More to-morrow,

W. F.

Note by the Editor.

As the reader may be anxious too, and Fitzwalter did afterwards see them, one (which, being the answer, implies the contents of the other,) is subjoined.

LETTER XI.

Penruddock to Lady Bracebridge.

Penruddock Hall, July, 183. You urge me in vain, spite of the eloquent things you say about forgiveness of injuries, of which I agree with you we all so much stand in need. I agree too in the affecting appeal that was once so powerfully, so irresistibly made, "Let him who is innocent throw the first stone at her."

Yes! were the question merely of forgiveness—of overcoming resentment-of laying aside revengein short, of wishing no ill, spite of a thousand wrongs-it would be easily settled.

But this is not so. It is to restore to love, where all that destroys it has been perpetrated; to return to esteem, where the meanness of coquetry, and the sacrifice of feeling to the very wantonness of vanity, has placed a stamp upon her mind, which neither kindness on my part, nor shame on her's, can obliterate: it is this, however I may forgive, that must for ever preclude forgetfulness. For, what did I

seek in this unhappy person? Was it merely that bloom, that rose of health, which seemed indeed the emblem of purity, and the life-blood of joy; but which turned out to be the mere revelling of youth, with neither sense nor honour to guard them? Was it merely that animation of an ever-varying, yet ever lovely countenance, which seemed all expression, but which, as has been proved, a glittering coxcomb, the personification of egotism and vanity, could kindle as soon, or sooner, than the most devoted lover? Were these what I sought?

No!-charming as they were, these were not the charms that swayed me.

""Twas not a set of features,

The tincture of a skin, that I admired;" but that feeling, sensible soul, which I fancied all ingenuousness, all warmth, and which could as candidly express as deeply feel. In short, it was her truth, still more even than her youth and grace, that sealed my devotion. That truth fledfled in an hour; the blush of shame did not even for a moment delay her retractation of Vows, which I thought were breathed by the breath of Heaven. Yet to this Heaven, as if to varnish her inconstancy with a still worse vice (hypocrisy), an appeal was made on the score of religion. Where were her religious fears when she plighted her faith to me, and sealed it with a O! Heaven, that such

seeming innocence should be a fiction! that such a flower should conceal a serpent!

Alas! how did this mortification wind itself around my heart! how blight my youth-that youth, when all was aerial, for all was hope. Though so many years have passed, can I even yet forget the voice and pathos with which she sang the sentiment which afterwards I grew so fond of that it became, as it were, part of myself?

"Ah! give me back my early days again,

Unfettered, when I seem'd to tread in air;
Could climb the hill, and bound along the plain,
Nor knew the rooted sadness of despair."

But wrong me not, sister. My despair is not that of a mortified lover, who has lost his mistress; it is of a mind that has been forced to change its best opinions of all that it thought worthiest, noblest, most elevated, as well as most amiable. Young as she was, and beautiful, admiration was the least powerful of my sensations. Rather I realized what both you and I used to select as, perhaps, the most touching of all descriptions of a husband's love.

"When I approach

Her loveliness, so absolute she seems,
And in herself complete, so well to know
Her own, that what she wills to do or say,
Seems wisest, virtuousest, discreetest, best."

Such was the opinion of Adam of his wife, before