Most heartily, most truly do I congratulate you, my dearest Eleanor,
upon your approaching marriage. You may reasonably hope for all that
happiness can afford; and though you do affect (for I do not think
that you feel) a fear lest you should not be able to fix a character,
volatile and light, like your lover's; yet when I recollect his warmth
of heart and high sense, and your beauty, gentleness, charms of
conversation, and purely disinterested love for one whose great
worldly advantages might so easily bias or adulterate affection, I own
that I have no dread for your future fate, no feeling that can at all
darken the brightness of anticipation. Thank you, dearest, for the
delicate kindness with which you allude to my destiny: me indeed you
cannot congratulate as I can you. But do not grieve for me, my
generous Eleanor: if not happy, I shall, I trust, be at least
contented. My poor father implored me with tears in his eyes; my
mother pressed my hand, but spoke not; and I, whose affections were
withered and hopes strewn, should I not have been hard-hearted indeed
if they had not wrung from me a consent? And oh should I not be
utterly lost, if in that consent which blessed them I did not find
something of peace and consolation?

Yes, dearest, in two months, only two months, I shall be Lord
Ulswater's wife; and when we meet, you shall look narrowly at me, and
see if he or you have any right to complain of me.

Have you seen Mr. Linden lately? Yet do not answer the question: I
ought not to cherish still that fatal clinging interest for one who
has so utterly forgotten me. But I do rejoice in his prosperity; and
when I hear his praises, and watch his career, I feel proud that I
should once have loved him! Oh, how could he be so false, so cruel,