even if I have any means of knowing: it is enough that, to my knowledge and that of more than one person with whom you are acquainted, the natural result followed. If there was any seduction, I should be puzzled to say on which side the art was used; but perhaps when you remember that the lady has, during all your acquaintance with her, (at least I presume so, from your continuing to visit her,) passed herself off on you as pure enough to be worthy of the honor of your hand, you may be able to form some idea whether she might not have been quite as much in fault as her partner in crime. I say "partner in crime," as I have no wish or motive to shelter Dr. Pomeroy. Perhaps I ought not to say more, and indeed my pen hesitates when I attempt to set down what I consider so lamentable, as well as so culpable. But I must go on, after going thus far. The secret of Miss Hill's remaining at the house of Dr. Pomeroy after her attainment of majority, is that a guilty attachment and connection has existed between them for not less than five years past, unsuspected by most persons who know them, but well known to myself and some others, at least one of whom has been the accidental witness of their crime. If you should think proper to tax her with this depravity, and she should choose to deny this statement, by way of convincing yourself whether this is a foul calumny or a bitter truth, ask her * * * * * * * * I hope and believe that you will take the warning that I have thus conveyed, and not give yourself any trouble to discover the writer, who does not conceal his name from any other motives than those which you can understand and approve. A TRUE FRIEND. Carlton Brand read through this precious document without speaking--a document not worse in motive than all other anonymous communications, any one of which should subject the perpetrator, if discovered, to cropped ears and slitted tongue,--but worse than all others of its evil kind in the atrocity of its surrounding circumstances, as the reader will have no difficulty in believing when a little additional light is shed upon the personality of the writer by the chapters immediately following. CHAPTER VII. A RETURN TO 1856--NICHOLAS HILL, IRON MERCHANT--HIS DEATH, HIS DAUGHTER AND HIS FRIEND--HOW DR. POMEROY BECAME A GUARDIAN, AND HOW HE DISCHARGED THAT DUTY--A RUIN AND AN AWAKENING--THE MARKET VALUE OF DUNDERHAVEN STOCK IN 1858.