Part 37 (1/2)

M. MONTFORD.

Letter LXIV

_To Mrs. Talbot_

New York, December 12.

I cannot leave this sh.o.r.e without thanking the mistress of my destiny for all her goodness. Yet I should not have ventured thus to address you, had I not seen a letter--Dearest creature, blame not your friend for betraying you. Think it not a rash or injurious confession that you have made.

And is it possible that you have not totally forgotten the sweet scenes of our childhood,--that absence has not degraded me in your opinion,--and that my devotion, if it continue as fervent as now, may look, in a few years, for its reward?

Could you prevail on yourself to hide these generous emotions from me?

To suffer me to leave my country in the dreary belief that all former incidents were held in contempt, and that, so far from being high in your esteem, my presence was troublesome, my existence was irksome, to you?

But your motive was beneficent and generous. You were content to be thought unfeeling and ungrateful for the sake of my happiness. I rejoice inexpressibly in that event which has removed the veil from your true sentiments. Nothing but pure felicity to me can flow from it. Nothing but grat.i.tude and honour can redound from it to yourself.

I go; but not with anguish and despondency for my companions. I am buoyed up by the light wings of hope. The prospect of gaining your love is not the only source of my present happiness. If it were, I should be a criminal and selfish being. No. My chief delight is, that happiness is yet in store for you; that, should Heaven have denied you your first hope, there still lives one whose claim to make you happy will not be rejected.

G. CARTWRIGHT.

Letter LXV

_To G. Cartwright_

Banks of Delaware, October 5.

My brother:--

It would avail me nothing to deny the confessions to which you allude.

Neither will I conceal from you that I am much grieved at the discovery.

Far am I from deeming your good opinion of little value; but in this case I was more anxious to deserve it than possess it.

Little, indeed, did you know me, when you imagined me insensible to your merit and forgetful of the happy days of our childhood,--the recollection of which has a thousand times made my tears flow. I thank Heaven that the evils which I have suffered have had no tendency to deaden my affections, to narrow my heart.

The joy which I felt for your departure was far from being unmixed. The persuasion that my friend and brother was going where he was likely to find that tranquillity of which his stay here would bereave him, but imperfectly soothed the pangs of a long and perhaps an eternal separation.

Farewell; my fervent and disinterested blessings go with you. Return speedily to your country, but bring with you a heart devoted to another, and only glowing with a brotherly affection for

J. T.

Letter LXVI

_To Jane Talbot_