o express all I desire to
say. Shall I commence by hoping that absence has led you to regard
me with less affection, or shall I honestly say, I no longer love
you as you deserve to be loved, and that I am no longer worthy your
affection. It costs me much to say this; but you would not wish me
to deceive you; you would not wish me to go perjured from the altar
with you. I most earnestly hope, nay, I feel sure, you will not
regret that I have discovered this mistake ere too late for the
peace of both. I have opened my heart and most bitterly do I regret
its delinquency; but our affections are involuntary, and not under
our control. Till the last two months, I believed mine to be
inviolably yours. I know I am betrothed to you, and, if you require
it, am bound, in honour, to fulfil my engagement; but I will ask
you, ought I to do so, feeling I no longer love you as I ought? Is
it not more really honourable to lay myself open and leave the
matter to your decision? If we are united, three individuals are
miserable for life; but it shall rest with you, oh, my excellent
Helen; forgive and pity

"Your still affectionate,

"EDWARD."

What a blow was this to her warm and sanguine heart! What a return to
love, so trustingly bestowed! She uttered not one reproach in her
reply, but merely released him from every promise, and wished him
every happiness.

She had, from the tenor of all his late letters, had a presentiment of
coming evil; but she could hardly, till that cruel one, just given to
the reader, realize its full extent; but the young do, and must feel
keenly in these matters,--females in particular,--and, if
right-minded, their all is embarked, and, if founded on esteem, the
affections are not given by halves; and I firmly believe the author,
who says, "Man is the creature of ambition and interest; his nature
leads him forth into the struggle and bustle of the world. Love is but
the embellishment of his early life, or a song, piped between the
intervals, But a woman's whole life is a history of her affections;
the heart is _her world_; it is there, her ambition strives for
empire; it is there, her avarice seeks for treasures. She sends forth
her sympathies on adventures, and embarks her all in the traffic of
affection, and, if shipwrecked, unless she be strongly supported by
religious principles, it is a complete bankruptcy of her happiness."

But let the young remember, there is o