hing can
change me--nothing can alter or affect the deep love I bear you. When
casting from me the cloud which had hung upon my birth, when assuming
the rank and taking possession of the property that is my own, I shall
still love you as devotedly as ever--still as earnestly seek your hand.
But oh! how I long to avoid all the pangs, the mischances, the anxieties
to every one, the ill feeling, the contention, the animosity, which must
ever follow such a struggle as that between your father and myself--oh,
how I long to owe every thing to you, even the station, even the
property, even the fair name that is my own by right! Nay, more, far
more, to owe you guidance and direction--to owe you support and
instruction--to owe you all that may improve, and purify, and elevate
me.

"Oh, Emily, dear cousin, let me be your debtor in all things. You who
first gave me the thought of rising above fate, and making myself worthy
of the high fortunes which I have long known awaited me, perfect your
work, redeem me for ever from all that is unworthy, save me from bitter
regrets, and your father from disappointment, sorrow, and poverty, and
render me all that I long to be.

"Yours, and forever,

"JOHN HASTINGS."

Very well done, Mrs. Hazleton!--but somewhat too well done. There was a
difference, a difference so striking, so unaccountable, between the
style of this letter, both in thought and composition, and the ordinary
style and manners of John Ayliffe, that it could not fail to strike the
eyes of Emily. For a moment she felt a little confused--not undecided.
There was no hesitation, no doubt, as to her own conduct. For an instant
it crossed her mind that this young man had deeper, finer feelings in
his nature than appeared upon the surface--that his manner might be more
in fault than his nature. But there were things in the letter itself
which she did not like--that, without any labored analysis or
deep-searching criticism, brought to her mind the conviction that the
words, the arguments, the inducements employed were those of art rather
than of feeling--that the mingling of threats towards her father,
however veiled, with professions of love towards herself, was in itself
ungenerous--that the objects and the means were not so high-toned as the
professions--that there was something sordid, base, ignoble in the whole
proceeding. It required no careful thought to arrive at such a
conclusion--no secon