After the rhetoric of half an hour, all was wound up, in a kind of satirical apology, with, "No wonder; for the girl was over head and ears in love, and her man would have nothing to say to her. A hundred times has she begged and prayed him to be kind, but he slighted all her advances; and always, after they had been shut up together, she wreaked her disappointment and ill-humour upon us." "Pray," said I, "who was this ungrateful person?" "His name was Talbot. Miss Jessup would not give him up, but teased him with letters and prayers till the man at last got married,--ten to one, for no other reason than to get rid of her." This intelligence was new. Much as I had heard of Miss Jessup, a story like this had never reached my ears. I quickly ascertained that the Talbot spoken of was the late husband of my friend. Some incident interrupted the conversation here. The image of Miss Jessup was displaced to give room to more important reveries, and I thought no more of her till this night's ramble. I now likewise recollected that the only person suspected of having entered the apartment where lay Mrs. Talbot's unfinished letter was no other than Miss Jessup herself, who was always gadding at unseasonable hours. How was this suspicion removed? By Miss Jessup herself, who, on being charged with the theft, asserted that she was elsewhere engaged at the time. It was, indeed, exceedingly improbable that Miss Jessup had any agency in this affair,--a volatile, giddy, thoughtless character, who betrayed her purposes on all occasions, from a natural incapacity to keep a secret. And yet had not this person succeeded in keeping her attachment to Mr. Talbot from the knowledge, and even the suspicion, of his wife? Their intercourse had been very frequent since her marriage, and all her sentiments appeared to be expressed with a rash and fearless confidence. Yet, if Hannah Secker's story deserved credit, she had exerted a wonderful degree of circumspection, and had placed on her lips a guard that had never once slept. I determined to stop at Wilmington next day, on my journey to you, and glean what further information Hannah could give. I ran to her lodgings as soon as I alighted at the inn. I inquired how long and in what years she lived with Miss Jessup; what reason she had for suspecting her mistress of an attachment to Talbot; what proofs Talbot gave of aversion to her wishes. On each of these heads her story was tediously minute and circumstantial. She lived with Miss Jessup and her mother before Talbot's marriage with my friend, after the marriage, and during his absence on the voyage which occasioned his death.