and there are some people we want to run
away from at first sight. Well, you put me
a good deal in mind of Mr. George, and I feel
somehow a sort of call for to let you know
all about him."

"Pray sit down," I said.

The accomplished rider did sit down (how
I envied him!). He sat on the edge of the chair,
with his legs wide apart and his hand placed
on a bundle of papers tied up in a pocket-
handkerchief, to secure it upon his knee.
"When things were as bad with him as
they could be," he added, "he gave me these
papers. They will tell you the rest of the
story better than I can."

Mr. Hockle having left me in solemn charge
of the bundle, took his leave.

I never robbed a house or poached over a
manor; but I think my conscience, when I
opened the first letter in the bundle,
acquainted me with some of the sensations of
a depredator. However, curiosity and Mr.
Hockle's leave and licence prevailed; and I
boldly plunged into the inmost recesses of
private affairs which I had no earthly right
to know.

I was naturally first attracted to a packet of
letters in a lady's hand. They were all
deeply bordered with black; all addressed to
George Dornley, Esq.; and all, except two,
were covered with foreign post-marks. They
were love-letters; and I deferred exploring
a daily newspaper, published in November,
eighteen hundred and seventeen, and the
other epistles—some in the cramped hand of
a lawyer—to devour the lady's letters first.
Having arranged them according to date,
I found the first was written about a month
after the interview described by Mr. Hockle
in the dingle. It seems to have found young
Mr. Dornley at Florence, and announced the
unexpected demise of the writer's mother in
terms of passionate grief. There was a long
interval between that and the others; which
were all directed to various places on the
road from Florence to England, down to the
last letter, which had been sent to the Royal
George, Nottingham, "to be left till called
for." The second letter ran thus:—

The shock of bereavement is passing away; for I
feel it a duty to you, my dearest, to master my grief.
I shut out the past. I look to the future. Only
one little month, and then what a change!— more
happiness than I shall be able to bear! My whole life
seems to flow in small slow drops into the current of
time which glides towards the ninth of June. Yes, you
must not scold me, as you did in your last dear letter,
for being too excitable; nor hint that I do not try all
my might to command myself; for I have been as
calm and as same one day with another as Miss Pim
our Quaker postmistress is. But I must describe my
remedy. Dr. Bole said last week, that my mind was
fixed too constantly upon some one idea. He
recommended immediate travel and change.

Dearest, I travel with you here, at home. I trace your
journey in poor papa's journal of his journey from
Florence, which he kept while he was travelling tutor to
your, as well as his, staunch friend Lord Wordley. I put
myself day by day into the carriage, and am rolled hour
by hour from one place to another with you; and see
vineyards, and palaces, and peasants, and priests, and
wayside chapels, and mountains, and lakes, and valleys,
and villages with you, and change horses with you,
and dine with you; and start afresh with you. It
is now Tuesday afternoon, a quarter past four, and
I am entering Nice with you. I know I am;
because I alighted at Genoa with you, yesterday
fortnight, at the same hour that your letter, which came
to-day, tells me you stopped at that place. I shall go
on travelling with you, dear George, day and night
until I hear you hastening down Linney Hill upon
Black Nan on the blessed ninth of June.

After the lapse of three days, the next letter
began:—

Mrs. Calder is now permanently established at
Crookston Hall, and I am extremely uneasy at the
frequency of her visits to me. They look like
persecution. They talk of sending your father to
Bath—for change, they say; but Dr. Bole hints
to me that it is to get him out of the way before your
arrival. Whenever he is able to speak he asks for
you; and I know when you return he would receive
you with open arms, if they would only let him.
Symptoms of immediate danger from the stroke have
subsided; but he is still helpless. Our secret appears
to be safe; but I dread Mrs. Calder's searching eyes
and calculating visits. Where are we now? Still at
Nice?

Here is our faithful ally, Tom, with the pony-chaise,
so I must conclude, dearest. Take my whole
heart.                          Your own EUSTA.

The date of the next letter was a week
later.

Mrs. Calder is always saying that before poor Mr.
Dornley was struck with paralysis, he was continually
bewailing that all the influence and consequence of the
Crookston patrimony should, at his death, descend to a
Radical, who would use them, as they wickedly say
or base purposes. Dr. Bole tells me another story.
The dear old man, he says, sometimes squeezes the doctor's
hand, and tries to say "George!" as if he longed to
see you. If you could only see him, I am sure he
would be entirely reconciled to our marriage.

I begin to dread that Mrs. Calder suspects
something; because when she speaks of my being dull
and wretched—as I am sometimes—she says very
cruelly that it is lucky poor Mamma passed away
when she did; and, while pretending that no amount
of contumely she heaps upon you can matter to me,
feels all the while that she is putting me upon the
rack. One day she said that your father's greatest
consolation, before his illness, had been that you were not
married; for if he saw a prospect of the property going
in succession to any child of yours, it would kill him.
I thank Heaven that I had strength to bear this, and
that I did not betray myself while she remained; but,
when she was gone, I had a severe hysterical attack,
and Dr. Bole was obliged to be sent for. He always
looks grave when he speaks of Mr. and Mrs. Calder;
and once hinted, that he thought they would stop
short of nothing to set you and yours aside. Mrs.
Calder's pride is inflexible, and she seems to feel, as
the wife of a second son, like a person labouring under
some indelible disgrace. Oh, if she could only know
how, in my utter loneliness, I yearn for some sisterly
affection; how I could take even her to my heart;