not--write to me. God bless him, and God forgive me! He never reproached me, living; what punishment he has inflicted upon me, dead! The letter was long; and it varied, I think, through every key in which human tenderness can be sung. But enough of this. "A portion of the contents concerned you nearly, my dear Helen. I can repeat them to you briefly. I knew, and you know, that your father and my father--very distant relatives--had been playmates in boyhood, and attached friends in manhood. We knew that your father died on his voyage home from India, and just after he had consigned you and your black nurse to the care of the captain of the ship, to be sent, on landing, to Knockholt Park. I believe you have your father's letter to my father, in which he solemnly, but fearlessly, entreats his protection for the orphan child, whose credentials it is to form. He had left your mother and her baby in an alien grave at Barrackpore, and I suppose he had not the strength to live for you only, 'little Nelly,' as they called you then. At all events, he died; and I knew in a vague kind of way about that, and my father's care of you, and how you grew up with him, and made his home cheerful and happy, which his only son left carelessly, and forsook for long. The letter recapitulated all this, and told me besides, that your mother had been my father's first love. Perhaps she was also his only love--God knows. He was a good husband to my mother during their brief married life, I am sure; for I remember her well; and she was always smiling and happy. But the girl he loved had preferred Robert Manningtree with nothing but his commission, to Peregrine Alsager with a large estate and a baronetcy for his fortunate future. My father, _preux chevalier_ that he was, did not forget to tell me that she never repented or had reason to regret that preference. Thus, Helen, you were a legacy to him, bequeathed not alone by friendship, but by love. As such he accepted you; as such he prized you, calm and undemonstrative as he was; as such it was the cherished purpose of his life to intrust you to me--not that I was to be your guardian in his place, but that I was to be your husband. He thought well of me, in spite of all, you see; he did not despair of his ungracious son, or he never would have dreamed of conferring so great a privilege on me, of suffering you to incur so great a risk. He had had this darling project so strongly in his mind, and yet had been so convinced that any betrayal of it to me would only prevent my seeking you, that my persistent neglect of the old home had a double bitterness for him; and at length, two years ago, hearing a rumour that I was about to marry one of the beauties of the season, he relinquished it, and determined to make a will, bequeathing to you the larger portion of his unentailed property. The rumour was true as to my intentions, but false as to my success. The lady in question jilted me for a richer marriage, thank God! I don't