"His increasing severity, every time he visited my apartment, had nearly reduced me to compliance, when Thomas returned from Cornwall, and secretly delivered me a letter from my mother. She advised me, if my father still persisted in forcing me into an union with Lord Aberford, to leave the Hall, and seek an asylum at Mrs. Radnor's, the bosom friend of her early days. The means of escape were easily effected by Thomas, who at night placed a ladder at my window, and conducted me in safety to the park-gate, whence Owen, the gamekeeper, who was waiting with horses, escorted me to Radnor Moor.--Mrs. Radnor received me with open arms, and, fully aware of the violent temper of my father, advised my taking the name of Worton; and, to screen me more effectually from his knowledge, a few days after left the Moor for Brighthelmstone. "I there, Howard, became acquainted with you. The sentiments we entertained for each other, were reciprocal; and freely should I have communicated the secret of my family, but Mrs. Radnor strenuously opposed it. Her detestation of my father, daily increased, and as he had declared that he no longer regarded me as his daughter, I should not, she said, with her approbation, ever acknowledge him as a father. The favourable opinion she entertained of you, encouraged the passion I had imbibed, and, regarding her councils as those of a parent, I early avowed my affection and consented to plight my faith to you for ever. "At this time, my brother privately visited us. My father, he said, continued inveterate against me, and having discovered that my mother had been the instigator of my elopement, he still confined her at his estate in Cornwall, though he occasionally allowed my brother the liberty of seeing her. Henry brought me a letter, the last I ever received from my beloved mother. It was dictated by maternal tenderness. The happiness of her children, she said, constituted hers: Henry's, she thought, would be established in his expected union with Miss Elvyn; and mine, she hoped, would be equally secured, in the choice I had made. She added a blessing on our nuptials; and the morning after Henry left us, to join his friend Booyers, previously to his intended marriage, I gave my hand to you at the altar. "Happy, indeed, were the days which succeeded our union, till the illness of Mrs. Radnor; which was occasioned by the sudden disclosure of my mother's death: her own followed in a few days, and I had to mourn the loss of both, and the knowledge I then first received of a brother's unhappiness.