“Believe me, my dearest Jenny, when I express to you the pain I feel in writing to you on such an occasion as the present, and in obtruding my sentiments upon you respecting a subject of such deep interest to your own heart, that upon the next step you take in it may probably depend your happiness or misery during the whole of your after-life. But as I am not happy, and have felt too grievously the impossibility of being made so any more in this world, it will not be difficult for you to credit my motives in wishing you to think, only _think_, how, by an ill-considered proceeding, you may do that in one moment which a whole after-life of pain can never remedy, and from which nothing but the grave can afford you a refuge. The young gentleman who has been introduced to you is not exactly what he has been represented--Mr. Lupton's friend. He is something more. Would that he were _my_ son, for your dear sake! Then, my dearest girl, should I wish him no higher happiness than the possession of so good and true a creature, nor you any better love and care than I should delight in exercising towards you. It is unfit that I should tell you more than this; though possibly your own good sense may enable you to supply the deficiency. If you can give up this disastrous affection, let me implore you to do so. I fear it cannot end in any happiness. Why I say so, I scarcely know; but I feel that fear most deeply. Perhaps my own wretchedness makes me doubt whether there be such a state as happiness really to be met with, in any shape, in the world. But whatever the cause, let me again and again, as you regard the last words of a true friend, beseech you never to consent to such a match as would make you mistress of this unhappy and mournful house. I know everything, and warn you advisedly. “Ever and for ever “Your affectionate “Elizabeth Lupton.” By a singular coincidence, the same post which placed the above in Miss Calvert's hands, also conveyed to her two others:--one from Colin, and the other from her brother Roger. Colin's was opened the first.--It contained all those passionate appeals and protestations which, from a person so circumstanced, might naturally have been expected. Judging from this epistle, Colin was in a state of desperation, scarcely to be sufficiently described; although he concluded by expressing his determination never to relinquish his suit, though all the powers of earth conspired to oppose him, or even Jane herself should be induced by her supposed friends to resist his addresses. But while he possessed the consciousness of her eternal affection, it was utterly impossible for him by any means to do otherwise than persist through all trials until fortune should be compelled at length to crown his hopes.