I am so sensible, in our helpless position, of the importance of your assistance; so anxious to be worthy of the interest of my father's trusted adviser and oldest friend, that I feel really and truly disappointed with myself for differing with you--and yet I do differ.

Magdalen is very strange, very unaccountable, to those who don't know her intimately.

I can understand that she has innocently misled you; and that she has presented herself, perhaps, under her least favorable aspect.

But that the clew to her language and her conduct on Wednesday last is to be found in such a feeling toward the man who has ruined us, as the feeling at which you hinted, is what I can not and will not believe of my sister.

If you knew, as I do, what a noble nature she has, you would not be surprised at this obstinate resistance of mine to your opinion.