She could trust Henrietta in everything.

But her son, Sir Felix, was not very trustworthy.

And yet Sir Felix was the darling of her heart.
At the time of the writing of the three letters, at which our story is supposed to begin, she was driven very hard for money.

Sir Felix was then twenty-five, had been in a fashionable regiment for four years, had already sold out, and, to own the truth at once, had altogether wasted the property which his father had left him.

So much the mother knew,--and knew, therefore, that with her limited income she must maintain not only herself and daughter, but also the baronet.