is tending? Can I answer this question? I
cannot. Heaven, that saved him from death and delivered him from
captivity, that saved my father, too, from shedding the blood of one who
would not have blemished a hair of his head, that Heaven must guide me
out of this labyrinth. Enough for me the firm resolution that Matilda
shall not blush for her friend, my father for his daughter, nor my lover
for her on whom he has fixed his affection.'

CHAPTER XVIII
Talk with a man out of a window!--a proper saying.

Much Ado about Nothing.

We must proceed with our extracts from Miss Mannering's letters, which
throw light upon natural good sense, principle, and feelings, blemished
by an imperfect education and the folly of a misjudging mother, who
called her husband in her heart a tyrant until she feared him as such,
and read romances until she became so enamoured of the complicated
intrigues which they contain as to assume the management of a little
family novel of her own, and constitute her daughter, a girl of sixteen,
the principal heroine. She delighted in petty mystery and intrigue and
secrets, and yet trembled at the indignation which these paltry
manoeuvres excited in her husband's mind. Thus she frequently entered
upon a scheme merely for pleasure, or perhaps for the love of
contradiction, plunged deeper into it than she was aware, endeavoured to
extricate herself by new arts, or to cover her error by dissimulation,
became involved in meshes of her own weaving, and was forced to carry on,
for fear of discovery, machinations which she had at first resorted to in
mere wantonness.

Fortunately the young man whom she so imprudently introduced into her
intimate society, and encouraged to look up to her daughter, had a fund
of principle and honest pride which rendered him a safer intimate than
Mrs. Mannering ought to have dared to hope or expect. The obscurity of
his birth could alone be objected to him; in every other respect,

With prospects bright upon the world he came, Pure love of virtue, strong
desire of fame, Men watched the way his lofty mind would take, And all
foretold the progress he would make.

But it could not be expected that he should resist the snare which Mrs.
Mannering's imprudence threw in his way, or avoid becoming attached to a
young lady whose beauty and manners might have justified his passion,
even in scenes where these are more generally met with than in a remote
fortress