With such materials as these to build upon, frail as they may seem to others, I found no difficulty in regarding myself as the dear friend of the family, and the acknowledged suitor of Lady Jane.
In the midst, however, of all my self-gratulation, my eye fell upon the letter of Emily Bingham, and I suddenly remembered how fatal to all such happy anticipations it might prove.

I tore it open in passionate haste and read-- "My dear Mr.Lorrequer--As from the interview we have had this morning I am inclined to believe that I have gained your affections, I think that I should ill requite such a state of your feeling for me, were I to conceal that I cannot return you mine--in fact they are not mine to bestow.

This frank avowal, whatever pain it may have cost me, I think I owe to you to make.

You will perhaps say, the confession should have been earlier; to which I reply, it should have been so, had I known, or even guessed at the nature of your feelings for me.

For--and I write it in all truth, and perfect respect for you--I only saw in your attentions the flirting habits of a man of the world, with a very uninformed and ignorant girl of eighteen, with whom as it was his amusement to travel, he deemed it worth his while to talk.