Keep this letter from the sight of Mrs. Clifton: if she have not already been told, do not let her know such a letter exists--Oh this brother!--But he is not your brother--Error so rooted, so malignant, so destructive exceeds all credibility! He came to me yesterday morning, as was his custom. There was something in his look which, could I but have read it, was exceedingly descriptive of the workings of his heart. It was painful to see him. He endeavoured to smile and for a moment to talk triflingly, but could not. He was in a tremor; his mouth parched, his lips white. His next essay was to philosophise; but in this attempt too he was entirely at fault. The passions are all sympathetic, and none more so than this of trepidation. I cannot recollect what the ideas were that passed hastily through my mind; but I know he excited much alarm, doubt, and I believe suspicion. But, though he had found all this difficulty to begin, having begun he recovered himself very surprisingly. His colour returned, his voice became firm, his ideas clear, his reasoning energetic, and his manner commanding. He seemed to mould my hopes and apprehensions as he pleased, to inspire terror this moment, and the excess of confidence the next. Louisa, my heart bleeds to say it, but his purposes were vile, his hypocrisy odious, and--I must forbear, and speak of foul deeds in fair terms. I know not how many prejudices rise up to warn me; one that I am a woman, or rather a girl; another that I am writing to the man's sister; a third that she is my friend, and so on with endless et ceteras. No matter that truth is to this friend infinitely more precious than a brother. I may be allowed to feel indignation, but not to express my feeling. But the most distressing, the most revolting part of all is, that he harangued like the apostle of truth, the name of which he vilely prophaned, in favour of the basest, most pitiful, most contemptible of vices; the mere vain glory of seduction. He has not even so much as the gratification of sensual appetite to plead in his excuse. I am wrong; it was not vain glory. Vanity itself, contemptible as such a stimulus would have been, was scarcely a secondary motive. It was something worse; it was revenge. My mind has been wholly occupied in retracing his past behaviour; I can think on no other subject, and every trait which recollection adds is a confirmation of this painful idea. He does not wish to marry me, and I almost doubt whether he ever did, at least fully and unreservedly. He came to me, Louisa, and began with painting the torments of delay and the pangs of jealousy, which he endeavoured to excuse; and concluded with a bold appeal to my justice; a daring, over-awing, confounding appeal. He called upon me at my peril, and as I respected truth and virtue, to deny his claim.