"It is not enough, however, that you should be free. I hope that the punctilious delicacy of Mr. Villiers will not cause you to reject the benefits of a mother. In this instance there is more of justice than generosity in my offer; and it may therefore be accepted without the smallest hesitation. My jointure ought to satisfy me, and the additional six hundred a year--which I may call the price of blood, since I bought it at the sacrifice of the dearest ties and duties,--is most freely at your service. It will delight me to get rid of it, as much as if thus I threw off the consciousness of a crime. It is yours by every law of equity, and will be hereafter paid into your banker's hands. Do not thank me, my dear child--be happy, that will be my best reward. Be happy, be prudent--this sum will not make you rich; and the only acknowledgment I ask of you is, that you make it suffice, and avoid debt and embarrassment. "By singular coincidence I am imperatively obliged to leave England at this moment. The horses are ordered to be here in half an hour--I am obliged therefore to forego the pleasure of seeing you until my return. Will you forgive me this apparent neglect, which is the result of necessity, and favour me by coming to my house to-morrow, on leaving your present abode, and making it your home until my return? Miss Derham has promised to call here this afternoon; I shall see her before I go, and through her you will learn how much you will make me your debtor by accepting my offers, and permitting me to be of some slight use to you. "Excuse the brevity and insufficiency of this letter, written at the moment of departure.--You will hear from me again, when I am able to send you my address, and I shall hope to have a letter from you. Meanwhile Heaven bless you, my angelic Ethel! Love your mother, and never, in spite of every thing, permit unkind thoughts of her to harbour in your mind. Make Mr. Villiers think as well of me as he can, and believe me that your welfare will always be the dearest wish of my heart. Adieu. "Ever affectionately yours. "C. LODORE." She folded and sealed this letter, and at the same moment there was a knock at the door of her house, which she knew announced the arrival of Fanny Derham. She was still much agitated, and trying to calm herself, she took up a newspaper, and cast her eyes down the columns; so, by one of the most common place of the actions of our life, to surmount the painful intensity of her thoughts. She read mechanically one or two paragraphs--she saw the announcements of births, marriages, and deaths. "My moral death will not be recorded here," she thought, "and yet, I shall be more dead than any of these." The thought in her mind remained as it were truncated; her eye was arrested--a paleness came over her--the pulses of her heart paused, and then beat tumultuously--how strange--how fatal were the words she read!--