Adieu! till the evening.
Ten at night.
About three hours ago, Emily received the inclosed, from our fair cottager.
Adieu!
Your affectionate
Ed. Rivers.
“To Mrs. Rivers.
“Madam,
“Though I have every reason to wish the melancholy event which brought me here, might continue unknown; yet your generous concern for a stranger, who had no recommendation to your notice but her appearing unhappy, and whose suspicious situation would have injured her in a mind less noble than yours, has determined me to lay before you a story, which it was my resolution to conceal for ever.
“I saw, Madam, in your countenance, when you honored me by calling at my house this morning, and I saw with an admiration no words can speak, the amiable struggle between the desire of knowing the nature of my distress in order to soften it, and the delicacy which forbad your enquiries, lest they should wound my sensibility and self-love.
“To such a heart I run no hazard in relating what in the world would, perhaps, draw on me a thousand reproaches; reproaches, however, I flatter myself, undeserved.
“You have had the politeness to say, there is something in my appearance which speaks my birth above my present situation: in this, Madam, I am so happy as not to deceive your generous partiality.