"Helen!
"That it should have entered into your heart, into the heart of my own dear child, to wish for permission to become the guest of a family who from the hour of your late father's death has ever treated me with the most cruel and unmerited unkindness, is a mystery that I cannot understand. It was this unkindness which drove me, sooner than I could have wished to do it, to find a friend and adviser in Mr. Cartwright; and my only fear now is, that his indulgent gentleness towards my children may prevent his being so firm a support to me in the guiding them as I may sometimes require. But in the present instance I want no strength beyond my own to declare to you, that I will not permit you to remain an hour longer at Sir Gilbert Harrington's; that I command you instantly to put yourself into the carriage I send for you, and return to Cartwright Park; (for so, of course, will my residence be called for the future;) and moreover, I beg you to inform the unprincipled pair who would seduce you from your mother's roof, that if on the present or any future occasion they should persuade you to commit so great a sin, I shall take legal measures to recover the possession of your person till such time as you shall be of age; when, if unhappily evil counsellors should still have influence over you, I shall give you up to them, to penniless obscurity, to your own heart's remorse, and to that sentence of everlasting condemnation which will in such case infallibly doom you to the region where there is howling and gnashing of teeth.
"As for my ward Miss Torrington, I must of course take the same summary mode of getting her again under my protection, for such time as I shall continue to be her legal guardian.
"Clara Helena Frances Cartwright.
"Cartwright Park, Wednesday."
When this composition was completed, Mr. Cartwright turned the desk to his lady, laid a fair sheet of blank paper before her, put a pen into her hand, drew the wax-lights near her, and then set about sipping the negus she had so kindly prepared for him, without appearing to think it at all necessary to ask her opinion of the document she was about to copy.
Being, however, rather new to the yoke into which it had pleased her to thrust her head, she took the liberty of reading it. A slight augmentation of colour was perceived on her delicate cheek as she proceeded, by the watchful eye of her husband, as he turned it towards her, over the top of the beautifully cut goblet he held in his hand. But he nibbled a biscuit, and said nothing.
When the perusal of it was completed, Mrs. Cartwright dipped the pen she still held between her fingers, in the ink; but before she began to use it, she paused, the colour mounted a little higher still, and she ventured to say in the very gentlest accent in the world, "My dear friend,—do you not think this might be a little softened?"
"As how, my sweetest?"
Mrs. Cartwright's eye again ran over it, but she seemed unwilling to speak: at length she said, "If you, dear Cartwright, agree with me about it, you would make the alteration so much better yourself!"
"Perhaps I might, my lovely Clara; but as the fact is that I do not agree with you at all on the subject, I suspect your epistle would be rather the worse than the better for any thing further that I could do to it."
He rose as he spoke, and going behind her, appeared to read the paper over her shoulder, and having satisfied himself with the examination, kissed her fair throat as he bent over it, adding, as he took a light from the table, "I am going to the library to look for a book, my love: write it exactly as you like, and I will seal it for you when I return."
No one who knew Mrs. Cartwright could have the slightest doubt that the letter would be very fairly copied by the time her obliging husband returned: and so it was every word of it excepting the date. She appeared to be in the very act of writing this when he came back, and stopping short as he entered, she said in a voice that certainly faltered a little, "My dear Cartwright,—don't you think it would be better to let those odious Harringtons hear from some other quarter of this change in the name of our place? Not but that I approve it, I assure you perfectly; but I know Lady Harrington so well! and I can guess so exactly the sort of style in which she will observe upon it!"
"Then, perhaps, dearest," said he, again coming behind her and caressing her neck,—"perhaps you may think it would please her ladyship better if your own name, as you have accepted it from me, were to be suppressed?—Is it so, my fairest?"