“Hugh Dudley, Florence, has written me that you and himself were engaged—solemnly pledged to each other to wed the coming summer. From your speech, made in public, in the presence of his friends and relative, from whom he has received the information, he now releases you from your chains, that he thinks must have been galling, to call forth from you, in public, so unprovoked, so cruel a speech. What renders it still more stinging, was the fact, that Mr. Hilton, one of the gentlemen present, has ever been an enemy of Dudley’s, and on his return home (for he lives not very far from him) repeated it among a certain set. After Dudley heard of this he gave the more ready credence to his aunt’s letter, which came whilst the subject was in agitation in his thoughts. He wrote to me, as your nearest friend and protector, explaining his conduct, and requesting me to hand you your letters. It has grieved me to hear of this conduct, heartless as I must call it, from my sister’s child.” I felt like throwing myself at my uncle’s feet, and begging him to plead for me with Hugh in my great misery; but, at this moment I looked up, and saw Mrs. Dudley standing near the entrance, and peering on me with such a smile of malicious triumph, that crushing back my real feelings of agony with my al-conquering pride, I said lightly, though it seemed as if my heart were weeping blood the while— “Do not trouble yourself, uncle, about my incapacity for bearing this, especially as you say it was brought on me by my own means. Inform Col. Dudley when you write, that I accept my release with thanks, and never have, nor could ever claim relationship with some of his kin, but with the same feelings of loathing and disgust I experience when some hideous and dangerous reptile crosses my path.” I was nerved by my anger against Mrs. Dudley to say this, and to act the part I assumed, of carelessness, for I took up the package with a light laugh, thanked my uncle, and dropped a very lowly reverence to her as I approached the door, saying, “I hope, my dear madam, that your truly _Christian_ heart is now at rest, having seen the end of our game, begun to relieve the tedium or worse of a country-house, blessed with such an inmate as your venerable self.” I have a dim recollection of seeing her eyes open wide and still wider with perfect amaze, and the words “heartless flirt,” fell from her lips. I reached my room, though my pride was fast ebbing, and locked myself in. I opened the bundle—my own letters came tumbling therefrom, and _one_ from _him_. I put it here, that with the record of my willful error, its punishment may also be seen.