. Too soon, my love! too soon!

Nelly! forgive me this outburst. I must write more calmly. It is sad to
speak ill of a sister; but surely it was cruel, that she, who had so
many lovers, should grudge me my happiness; should pursue George with
such unreasonable malice; should rouse the senseless but immovable
obstinacy of our poor brother against him. Oh, Eleanor! think of my
position! Our father and mother dead; under the care of our only
brother, who, as you know, dear Nell, was at one time feared to be a
complete idiot, and had, poor boy! only so much sense as to make him
sane in the eyes of the law. You know the fatal obstinacy with which he
pursued an idea once instilled; the occasional fits of rage that were
not less than insanity. Knowing all this, my dear, imagine what I must
have suffered when angrily recalled home. I was forbidden to think of
Mr. Manners again. In vain I asked for reasons. They had none, and yet a
thousand to give me. When I think of the miserable stories that were
raked up against him,--the misconstruction of everything he did, or
said, or left undone,--my own impotent indignation, and my poor
brother's senseless rage, and the insulting way in which I was watched,
and taunted, and tortured,--oh, Nelly! it is agony to write. I did the
only thing left to me--I gave him up, and prayed for peace. I do not say
that I was right: I say that I did the best I could in a state of things
that threatened to deprive me of reason.

My submission did not produce an amount of harmony in the house in any
way proportionate to the price I paid for it. Harriet was obliged to
keep the slanders of my lover constantly in view, to quiet the
self-reproach which I think she must sometimes have experienced. As to
Edmund, my obedience had somewhat satisfied him, and made way for
another subject of interest which was then engrossing his mind.

A man on his estate, renting a farm close to us, who was a Quaker, and
very "strict" in his religious profession, had been for a long time
grossly cheating him, relying, no doubt, on my poor brother's deficient
intellect. But minds that are intellectually and in reason deficient,
are often endowed with a large share of cunning and caution, especially
in monetary affairs. Edmund guessed, watched, and discovered; but when
the proof was in his hands, his proceedings were characteristically
peculiar. He did not discharge the man, and have done with it; he
retained him in his place, bu