After opening and looking at the signature of several of these letters, Helen sat in a delightful _embarras de richesse_. To read them all--all at once, was impossible; with which to begin, she could not determine. One after another was laid aside as too good to be read first, and after glancing at the contents of each, she began to deal them round alphabetically till she was struck by a passage in one of them--she looked to the signature, it was unknown to fame--she read the whole, it was striking and interesting. There were several letters in the same hand, and Helen was surprised to find them arranged according to their dates, in Lady Davenant’s own writing--preserved with those of persons of illustrious reputation! These she read on without further hesitation. There was no sort of affectation in them--quite easy and natural, “real feeling, and genius,” certainly genius, she thought!--and there seemed something romantic and uncommon in the character of the writer. They were signed Granville Beauclerc! Who could he be, this Granville Beauclerc? She read on till Lady Davenant, having finished her packet, rang a silver handbell, as was her custom, to summon her page. At the first tingle of the bell Helen started, and Lady Davenant asked, “Whose letter, my dear, has so completely abstracted you?” Carlos, the page, came in at this instant, and after a quick glance at the handwriting of the letters, Lady Davenant gave her orders in Portuguese to Carlos, and then returning to Helen, took no further notice of the letters, but went on just where she had left off. “Helen, I remember when you were about nine years old, timid as you usually were, your coming forward, bold as a little lion, to attack me in Cecilia’s defence; I forget the particulars, but I recollect that you said I was unjust, and that I did not know Cecilia, and there you were right; so, to reward you, you shall see that now I do her perfect justice, and that I am as fond of her as your heart can wish. I really never did know Cecilia till I saw her heartily in love; I had imagined her incapable of real love; I thought the desire of pleasing universally had been her ruling passion--the ruling passion that, of a little mind and a cold heart; but I did her wrong. In another more material point, too, I was mistaken.” Lady Davenant paused and looked earnestly at Helen, whose eyes said, “I am glad,” and yet she was not quite certain she knew to what she alluded. “Cecilia righted herself, and won my good opinion, by the openness with which she treated me from the very commencement of her attachment to General Clarendon.” Lady Davenant again paused to reflect, and played for some moments with the tablets in her hand.