was no help for it, he maid up his mind, and
accordingly wrote the follying letter to Miss Griffin:--

"MY ADORED MATILDA,--Your letter has indeed been a comfort to a poor
fellow, who had hoped that this night would have been the most blessed
in his life, and now finds himself condemned to spend it within a
prison wall! You know the accursed conspiracy which has brought these
liabilities upon me, and the foolish friendship which has cost me so
much. But what matters! We have, as you say, enough, even though I
must pay this shameful demand upon me; and five thousand pounds are as
nothing, compared to the happiness which I lose in being separated a
night from thee! Courage, however! If I make a sacrifice it is for you;
and I were heartless indeed if I allowed my own losses to balance for a
moment against your happiness.

"Is it not so, beloved one? IS not your happiness bound up with mine,
in a union with me? I am proud to think so--proud, too, to offer such a
humble proof as this of the depth and purity of my affection.

"Tell me that you will still be mine; tell me that you will be mine
tomorrow; and to-morrow these vile chains shall be removed, and I will
be free once more--or if bound, only bound to you! My adorable Matilda!
my betrothed bride! Write to me ere the evening closes, for I shall
never be able to shut my eyes in slumber upon my prison couch, until
they have been first blessed by the sight of a few words from thee!
Write to me, love! write to me! I languish for the reply which is to
make or mar me for ever. Your affectionate

"A. P. D."

Having polisht off this epistol, master intrustid it to me to carry,
and bade me at the same time to try and give it into Miss Griffin's hand
alone. I ran with it to Lady Griffinses. I found Miss, as I desired, in
a sollatary condition; and I presented her with master's pafewmed Billy.

She read it, and the number of size to which she gave vint, and the
tears which she shed, beggar digscription. She wep and sighed until I
thought she would bust. She even claspt my hand in her's, and said, "O
Charles! is he very, very miserable?"

"He is, ma'am," says I; "very miserable indeed--nobody, upon my honor,
could be miserablerer."

On hearing this pethetic remark, her mind was made up at onst: and
sitting down to her eskrewtaw, she immediantly ableaged master with an
answer. Here it is in black and white:

"My prisoned bird shall pine no more, but fly home to its ne