No, Murden, mere assertion though aided by the authority of your name, will not convince Mrs. Ashburn of her companion's proflicacy. If I cannot fairly and fully detect her practices, I can never remove her. The affair must rest till my return; and then I will try my utmost. I thank you for your information, and I have this morning given Miss Laundy an information that I understand her. A surprising alteration is displayed in Montgomery. Mr. Valmont, I conclude, has begun his discipline.--Explanation is approaching; and do you, my friend, school yourself, before you and he meet, and then you will not cease to befriend him though he may cease to befriend himself. Adieu! ere this arrives at the farm, I shall be at my station. CAROLINE ASHBURN LETTER XXVI FROM CLEMENT MONTGOMERY TO JANETTA LAUNDY And is it come to this? You urged the secret from me I would fain have withheld; and now do you also give me up to despair? Oh Janetta! Janetta! have I deserved it of you? What was there in that cruel letter of Mr. Valmont's which should chill the ardour of love? His anger has blasted all the fair promises of my life; but it could not transform me into age or ugliness. Still am I, though wretched and desperate, thy Montgomery; still adoring thy beauty, panting for thy charms. Forgive me if these reproaches are injurious to your tenderness. If you yet love me, forgive me. Alas! you love me not! You turn from me with an averted eye. You repulse my caresses! You give me up to misery and despair; and the wretched Montgomery dies under your neglect. Farewel, my Janetta! Oh farewel, farewel, then, to all the blooming pleasures which I gathered with an eager hand! My sentence is without appeal. Mr. Valmont--that a father should be so cruel! dooms me to poverty and disgrace. Can I exist in poverty? No, by heaven! Shall I languish in a sordid dwelling, with there food and covering, and sicken over the remembrance of past enjoyments? Shall I live to crawl along with steps enfeebled by misfortune, and view the splendid equipages of those who were once my associates pass me unheeded? No, I cannot endure it. Some way or other I must end it. All the means of making life desirable are denied me. I blush at my unmerited disgrace. I would hide myself from every eye save your's, Janetta; and, when the fatal tidings are divulged abroad, I shall surely expire with torture. Yet, be once more kind, my charmer:--if thou hast no kindness for the unfortunate Montgomery, this once, at least affect it. Thou hast known misfortune. Have pity on me! Come and listen to my sighs: let me breathe a sorrowful farewel on thy bosom. I shall not ask this indulgence a second time. I will fly, to bury in solitude the short remnant of a miserable existence.--Then come, and once more bid my heart throb with rapturous sensations! Bid me for a moment forget my doom, remembering only what I have been!--The blissful moment ended, farewel, Janetta! farewel to all! CLEMENT MONTGOMERY