ld to comfort her.

She was convinced now that she lay under God's curse, and by and by
her weak thoughts connected this curse with her father's displeasure.
If she could move her father to relent, it might be lifted from her.
And so after many weeks of brooding she found courage to write this
letter:

From Hetty to her Father

Honoured Sir,--Although you have cast me off and I know that a
determination once taken by you is not easily moved, I must tell
you that some word of your forgiving is not only necessary to
me, but would make happier the marriage in which, as you
compelled it, you must still (I think) feel no small concern.
My child, on whose frail help I had counted to make our life
more supportable to my husband and myself, is dead. Should God
give and take away another, I can never escape the thought that
my father's intercession might have prevailed against His wrath,
which I shall then, alas! take to be manifest.

Forgive me, sir, that I make you a party in such happiness (or
unhappiness) as the world generally allows to be, under God, a
portion for two. But as you planted my matrimonial bliss, so
you cannot run away from my prayer when I beseech you to water
it with a little kindness. My brothers will report to you what
they have seen of my way of life and my daily struggle to redeem
the past. But I have come to a point where I feel your
forgiveness to be necessary to me. I beseech you, then, not to
withhold it, and to believe me your obedient daughter,
Mehet. Wright.

The Answer

Daughter,--If you would persuade me that your penitence is more
than feigned, you are going the wrong way to work. I decline to
be made a party to your matrimonial fortunes, as you claim in
what appears to be intended for the flower of your letter; and
in your next, if you would please me, I advise you to display
less wit and more evidence of honest self-examination.
To that--which is the beginning of repentance--you do not appear
to have attained. Yet it would teach you that your troubles, if
you have any, flow from your own sin, and that for any
inconveniences you may find in marriage you are probably as much
to blame (at the very least) as your honest husband.
Your brothers speak well of him, and I shall always think mysel