arage, and is going down to a
curacy in Cornwall. Here," said she, pointing to another page, "here is
where you are to begin; 'I might have borne--'"

"Ah, yes!" said he, reading aloud; "'I might have borne up better under
this misfortune if it had not occurred at such a critical moment of my
poor boy's fate, for I am still uncertain what effect these tidings will
have produced on you. I shall no longer have a home to offer the young
people, when from reasons of health, or economy, or relaxation, they
would like to have left the town and come down to rusticate with us.
Neither will it be in my power to contribute--even in the humble shape I
had once hoped--to their means of living. I am, in short, reduced to
the very narrowest fortune, nor have I the most distant prospect of any
better: so much for myself As for Joseph, he has been offered, through
the friendly intervention of an old college companion, an appointment at
the Calcutta Bar. It is not a lucrative nor an important post, but one
which they say will certainly lead to advancement and future fortune.
Had it not been for his hopes--hopes which had latterly constituted the
very spring of his existence--such an opening as this would have been
welcomed with all his heart; but now the offer comes clouded with all
the doubts as to how you may be disposed to regard it. Will you consent
to separate from the dear girl you have watched over with such loving
solicitude for years? Will she herself consent to expatriation and the
parting from her sister and yourself? These are the questions which
torture his mind, and leave him no rest day or night! The poor fellow
has tried to plead his cause in a letter--he has essayed a dozen
times--but all in vain.

"My own selfishness shocks me," he says, "when I read over what I have
written, and see how completely I have forgotten everything but my own
interests. If he remain at home, by industry and attention he may hope,
in some six or seven years, to be in a position to marry; but six or
seven years are a long period of life, and sure to have their share of
vicissitudes and casualties. Whereas, by accepting this appointment,
which will be nearly seven hundred a year, he could afford at once to
support a wife, of course supposing her to submit willingly to the
privations and wants of such straitened fortunes. I have offered to tell
his story for him--that story he has no strength to tell himself--but I
have not pledged to be his ad