had never sought to win your love, but I fully believed you ingenuous as you seemed. Had you not met the advances so sincerely made by me, with such seeming pleasure, whatever the struggle might have cost me, it had passed in silence. I will candidly own, that while my respect is lessened, I cannot forget what my feelings towards you have been. Time alone can heal the peace of mind you have so recklessly wounded; but I again advise you to reflect seriously on the past, and be assured, that she who pursues such a line of conduct as you have done, will ever find it militate against her own happiness, as well as that of others; and I fear, it has done so in the present instance, for while smarting under the bitter feelings your behaviour called forth, I wrote to an intimate friend, and spoke of my disappointment, and the struggle I had to obtain such a mastery over myself, as would prevent it interfering with my duty. Unfortunately, that friend was the very man to whom you are engaged; which I did not know at the time, nor am I prepared to say if I had, how I should have acted. George Graham is an honourable fellow, who believed you as faithful as himself. Thus has your thoughtless, nay, I will go farther, and say highly culpable levity, sacrificed the happiness of two as honest hearts as ever beat in the human breast; I would say I pity you, but I can hardly expect your own peace to have suffered. 

 "Mine is a responsible and sacred calling; and feeling it to be such, I want, when I marry, a woman who will aid, not hinder me in my arduous duties; I have, as far as human infirmity permits, done with the world and its pleasures; but I am but mortal, and who knows to what frivolity, nay to what sin, but for the merciful interposition of God, you might have led me; and that, while bound to teach and guide others, I might, in my daily conduct, have contradicted the truths I was bound to enforce. 

 "On first coming to reside here, I was much pleased with Miss Fortescue, and I felt that with her, I could be happy, but her reserve made me fancy her indifferent to me, and I judged she could not return my love; and while her conduct increased my esteem, I resolved that I would not forfeit her friendship by persevering in attentions, I feared, she cared not for. You came: your beauty struck me; your fascinating manners made an impression I could not resist; your seeming pleasure in my attentions misled me, and my heart was enslaved ere my judgment could act. But no more! you have yourself, undrawn the veil, and humbly do I thank the merciful Providence that has thus over–ruled things, and interfered to save me from—, I hardly know what. You can scarcely wonder 

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