frailties of my brothers of the dust, and to describe myself as an
innocent sufferer; but I now approach a period of my life, from the
mention of which I shrink with well-grounded apprehensions. Yet judge
me with candour; remember the strength of the temptation through
which I erred; and divesting yourself, if possible, of the
recollection of your own injuries, moderate your resentment against
an unfortunate being, who for many long years of his existence has
not enjoyed one easy hour.

"It was nearly three years after the period to which I have alluded
that an accident of which I need not remind you, my beloved Helen,
introduced me to the acquaintance of your family. You may remember
the backwardness with which I first received their approaches; the
very name of Percy had become ominously painful to me, and yet it
inspired me with a strange and undefinable interest. A spell appeared
to attract me towards you, and in spite of my first resolution to the
contrary, in spite of the melancholy reserve that still dwelt upon my
mind, I became an acquaintance, and at length the favoured inmate and
friend, of your father. Could I imagine the dangers that lurked
beneath his roof? could I believe that while I thus once more
indulged in the social converse to which I had been long a stranger,
I should gain the affections of his child? The playful girl towards
whom my age enabled me to assume an almost parental authority, while
I exercised, in turn, the parts of playmate and preceptor, beloved as
she was in all the charms of her dawning beauty, and artless naivete,
inspired me with no deeper sentiment; not even when I saw her
gradually expand into the maturer pride of womanhood, and acquire
that feminine gentleness, that dignified simplicity of character,
which had attracted me in Theresa Marchmont. Early in our
intercourse, I had acquainted Lord Percy that the confinement of a