"I HAVE perhaps dwelt too long on a circumstance, which is only of importance as it marks the progress of a deception that has been so fatal to my peace; and introduces to your notice a poor girl, whom, intending to serve, I led to ruin.

Still it is probable that I was not entirely the victim of mistake; and that your father, gradually fashioned by the world, did not quickly become what I hesitate to call him--out of respect to my daughter.
"But, to hasten to the more busy scenes of my life.

Mr.Venables and my mother died the same summer; and, wholly engrossed by my attention to her, I thought of little else.

The neglect of her darling, my brother Robert, had a violent effect on her weakened mind; for, though boys may be reckoned the pillars of the house without doors, girls are often the only comfort within.

They but too frequently waste their health and spirits attending a dying parent, who leaves them in comparative poverty.