"I will not lay down my pen without thanking you for your kindness to my young friend, Amy; she says you are very kind. And here again I would repeat what I said in a former letter to Mrs. Murchison, that she has been tenderly nurtured, and I would not that her young spirit should be broken. Forget not your promise to treat her more as a companion and friend, than as a governess, or as the latter class are sometimes treated. I am inclined to doubt any promise of yours being kept, but I have Mr. Linchmore's word, and I am content. "And now farewell. May God forgive you, as I do. When your hour of death draws near--for in this changing and transitory life, we know not what a day may bring forth, or how soon we may be summoned away, and perhaps I shall never write to you again--may it smooth your dying hour, and give peace to your then troubled, remorseful heart, to know, that she whom you so deeply injured and so cruelly deceived and whose life you helped to render desolate, has forgiven you. "ELLEN ELRINGTON." There was an expression of pain on Mrs. Linchmore's face as she read, but not a sigh not a tear escaped her; perhaps those had all been shed long ago, or surely those sad, earnest words, from a sorrowful heart would have moved her; but ere she closed the letter and looked up, the painful look passed away, and a sarcastic curl had settled on her lip, and shone brightly in her full dark eye. She crushed the letter in her hand as she would perhaps have crushed the writer, if she could, and laughed aloud; a laugh so hollow, so forced, its very echo would have made one's blood run cold; but there was no fear of its being heard, she was still alone, as she felt with satisfaction as she glanced hurriedly around. Again she laughed. But this time the tones were more subdued, the echo was scarcely heard. She crushed the letter more tightly in her hand, until the clear blue veins were almost swelled to bursting, while she murmured, "so much for Mrs. Elrington's letter. Did she think to frighten and make a coward of me. Pshaw! she was mistaken; _I am altered and changed_, for it amused me."