withhold your pity? and pitying, can you possibly allow her to be
entrapped? Forgive my seeming harshness. I do not often speak to my
Harry so. I do now because I must appeal to you, as the one chiefly
responsible, on whose head the whole weight of a dreadful error will
fall. Oh! my dearest, be guided by the purity of your feelings to shun
doubtful means. I have hopes that after the first few weeks your
grandfather will--I know he does not 'expect to find the engagement
fulfilled--be the same to you that he was before he discovered the
extravagance. You are in Parliament, and I am certain, that by keeping
as much as possible to yourself, and living soberly, your career there
will persuade him to meet your wishes.'

The letter was of great length. In conclusion, she entreated me to
despatch an answer by one of the early morning trains; entreating me once
more to cause 'any actual deed' to be at least postponed. The letter
revealed what I had often conceived might be.

My rejoinder to my aunt Dorothy laid stress on my father's pledge of his
word of honour as a gentleman to satisfy the squire on a stated day.
I shrank from the idea of the Riversley crow over him. As to the lady,
I said we would see that her money was fastened to her securely before
she committed herself to the deeps. The money to be advanced to me would
lie at my bankers, in my name,--untouched: it would be repaid in the bulk
after a season. This I dwelt on particularly, both to satisfy her and to
appease my sense of the obligation. An airy pleasantry in the tone of
this epistle amused me while writing it and vexed me when it had gone.
But a letter sent, upon special request, by railway, should not, I
thought, be couched in the ordinary strain. Besides one could not write
seriously of a person like Lady Sampleman.