"Mrs. Fielder has been somewhat deceived with regard to me. She thinks me capable of a guilt of which, vicious as I am, I am yet incapable. Nay, she imagines I have actually committed a crime of which I am wholly innocent. "What think you, madam," (taking her hand, and eyeing her with steadfastness;) "she thinks me at once so artful and so wicked that I have made the wife unfaithful to the husband; that I have persuaded Mrs. Talbot to forget what was due to herself, her fame, and to trample on her marriage-vow. "This opinion is not a vague conjecture on suspicion. It is founded in what seems to be the most infallible of all evidence; the written confession of her daughter. The paper appears to be a letter which was addressed to the seducer soon after the guilty interview. This paper came indirectly into Mrs. Fielder's hands. To justify her charge against us, she has shown it to, us. Now, madam, the guilt imputed to us is a stranger to our hearts. The crime which this letter confesses never was committed, and the letter which contains the confession never was written by Jane. It is a forgery. "Mrs. Fielder's misapprehension, so far as it relates to me, is of very little moment. I can hope for nothing from the removal of this error while so many instances of real misconduct continue to plead against me, but her daughter's happiness is materially affected by it, and for her sake I am anxious to vindicate her fame from this reproach. "No doubt, Miss Jessup, you have often asked me in your heart, since I began to speak, why I have stated this transaction to you. What interest have you in our concerns? What proofs of affection or esteem have you received from us, that should make you zealous in our behalf? Or what relation has your interest in any respect to _our_ weal or woe? Why should you be called upon as a counsellor or umpire in the little family dissensions of Mrs. Talbot and her mother? "And do indeed these questions rise in your heart, Miss Jessup? Does not memory enable you to account for conduct which, to the distant and casual observer, to those who know not what _you_ know, would appear strange and absurd? "Recollect yourself. I will give you a moment to recall the past. Think over all that has occurred since your original acquaintance with Mrs. Talbot or her husband, and tell me, solemnly and truly, whether you discern not the cause of his mistake. Tell me whether you know not the unhappy person whom some delusive prospect of advantage, some fatal passion, has tempted to belie the innocent." I am no reader of faces, my friend. I drew no inferences from the confusion sufficiently visible in Miss Jessup. She made no attempt to interrupt me, but quickly withdrew her eye from my gaze; hung her head upon her bosom; a hectic flush now and then shot across her check. But these would have been produced by a similar address, delivered with much solemnity and emphasis, in any one, however innocent.