I called her a distant relation; but I am well aware that I have in general been suspected of a much nearer connection with her.

It is now three years ago (she had just reached her fourteenth year,) that I removed her from school, to place her under the care of a very respectable woman, residing in Dorsetshire, who had the charge of four or five other girls of about the same time of life; and for two years I had every reason to be pleased with her situation.

But last February, almost a twelvemonth back, she suddenly disappeared.

I had allowed her, (imprudently, as it has since turned out,) at her earnest desire, to go to Bath with one of her young friends, who was attending her father there for his health.

I knew him to be a very good sort of man, and I thought well of his daughter--better than she deserved, for, with a most obstinate and ill-judged secrecy, she would tell nothing, would give no clue, though she certainly knew all.