I know, dear friend, you will wonder that the letter I received from home was from _my father_. I had always belonged more to him than my mother. Marion, you know, was the favourite in her babyhood; and it was my fault, perhaps, as well as my misfortune, that I was always reserved to my mother. I well recollect her once expressing impatience at that reserve; but I never could shake it off; it exists, as you know, to this day. A sensitive child, once repelled, seldom makes another advance, and I have told you that I entered the world just as the best-beloved one was fading from it. My mother had less thought naturally for me than him. I turned to my father--his arms were open, and I rested there. You have been a member of our family circle for some weeks now; otherwise, how could I bring myself to cast a shade of reproach on my mother, for whom you have so high a respect? Ah! _you_ will not set it down to wrong account. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ You see I linger in my wretched history. I look again into my journal. 16th March. "Clarence has returned; at times dejected; at times excited; he is totally unlike his former self. We are at Newlands again. All these scenes and objects associated with happier hours! They bring but bitterness to me. I never approach the fountain of Egeria... When I hear the sound of horses' feet in those long avenues, I fly--I am ill--I cannot rest--and oh, this crowd! how it oppresses me! How I long for a friend to whom I could impart my sorrow. Oh, for advice!--Dear father! would that I were at home and by thy side. Mother, you would take your stricken daughter to your arms. Though weak and ill, how strong within me is the power of suffering..." ------------------------------------------------------------------------ You say, Major Frankfort, that you love me; I believe you; you will love me ever, for you will ever pity me; and so, knowing what your heart will feel on reading this, I will not _shed_ all my miserable thoughts of this period upon paper. All this time Lyle was intent upon his purpose. He _felt_ my fate was in his hands. He took up a new position. I was sitting one morning in Lady Amabel's boudoir. A servant ushered in Mr Lyle. He started back; "It was Lady Amabel he came to see," he said. I begged him to be seated, and rose to go for her. He detained me gently. How specious he was--how blind was I! He had "been studying me for weeks;" from the first moment we met, he "had been deeply interested in me. He had perceived the shade that an early sorrow had cast round me, and had come to ask Lady Amabel if there was no hope for _him_; he would not press the question on me now, it would be unkind."