GLENFERN CASTLE, —-SHIRIE, June 19, 181—.
"It is impossible for language to express to you the shame, grief, amazement, and indignation, with which we are all filled at the distressing, the ignominious disclosure that has just taken place concerning you, through our most excellent friend Miss P. M'Pry. Oh, Mary, how have you deceived us all!!! What a _dagger _have you plunged into all our hearts! Your _poor _Aunt Grizzy! how my heart bleeds for her! What a difficult part has she to act! and at her time of life! with her acute feelings! with her devoted _attachment _to the house of M'Laughlan! What a blow! and a _blow _from your hand! Oh, Mary, I must again repeat, how have you deceived us all!!! Yet do not imagine I mean to reproach you! Much, much of the blame is _doubtless _imputable to the errors of your education! At the _same _time, even these offer no justification of your _conduct _upon the present occasion! You are now (I lament to say it!) come to that time of life when you ought to know what is right; or, where you entertain any doubts, you ought most unquestionably to apply to those who, you may be certain, are well qualified to direct you. But, instead of that, you have pursued a diametrically opposite plan: a plan which might have ended in your destruction! Oh, Mary, I cannot too _often _repeat, how have you deceived us all!!! From no _lips _but those of Miss M'Pry would I have believed what I have heard, videlicet, that you (oh, Mary!) have, for many, many months past, been carrying on a clandestine _correspondence _with a young man, unknown, unsuspected by all your friends here! and that young man, the very last man on the face of the earth whom you, or any of us, ought to have given our countenance to! The very man, in short, whom we were all bound, by every principle of duty, gratitude, and esteem, to have shunned, and who you are _bound, _from this moment, to renounce for ever. How you ever _came _to be acquainted with Colonel Charles Lennox of Rose Hall is a mystery none of us can fathom; but surely the person, _whoever _it was that brought it about, has much, much to answer for! Mrs. Douglas (to whom I thought it proper to _make _an immediate communication on the subject) pretends to have been well informed of all that has been going on, and even insists that your acquaintance with the Lennox family took place through Lady M'Laughlan! But that we all know to be morally impossible. Lady M'Laughlan is the very last person in the world who would have introduced you, or any young creature for whom she had the slightest regard, to a Lennox, the mortal enemy of the M'Laughlan race! I most sincerely trust she is spared the shock we have all experienced at this painful _disclosure. _With her high principles, and great regard for us, I tremble to think what might be the consequences! And dear Sir Sampson, in his delicate state, how would he ever be able to stand such a blow! and a blow, too, from your hand, Mary! you, who he was always like a father to! Many a time, I am sure, have you sat upon his knee, and you certainly cannot have forgot the elegant Shetland pony he presented you with the day you was five years old! And what a return for such favours!
"But I fondly trust it is not yet too late. You have only to give up this unworthy attachment, and all will be forgotten and forgiven; and we will all receive you as if nothing had happened. Oh, Mary! I must, for the last time repeat, how have you deceived us all!
"I am your distressed aunt,
"JOAN DOUGLAS.
P.S.—I conclude abruptly, in order to leave room for your Aunt Nicky to state her sentiments also on this most afflicting subject."
Nicky's appendix was as follows:—
"DEAR MARY—Jacky has read her letter to us. It is most excellent. We are all much affected by it. Not a word but deserves to be printed. I can add nothing. You see, if you marry Colonel L. none of us can be at your marriage. How could we? I hope you will think twice about it. Second thoughts are best. What's done cannot be undone. Yours,
"N. D."
Mary felt somewhat in the situation of the sleeper awakened, as she perused these mysterious anathemas; and rubbed her eyes more than once in hopes of dispelling the mist that she thought must needs be upon them. But in vain: it seemed only to increase with every effort she made to remove it. Not a single ray of light fell on the palpable obscure of Miss Jacky's composition, that could enable her to penetrate the dark profound that encompassed her. She was aware, indeed, that when her aunt meant to be pathetic or energetic she always had recourse to the longest and the strongest words she could possibly lay her hands upon; and Mary had been well accustomed to hear her childish faults and juvenile indiscretions denounced in the most awful terms as crimes of the deepest dye. Many an exordium she had listened to on the tearing of her frock, or the losing of her glove, that might have served as a preface to the "Newgate Calendar," "Colquhoun on the Police," or any other register of crimes. Still she had always been able to detect some clue to her own misdeeds; but here even conjecture was baffled, and in vain she sought for some resting-place for her imagination, in the probable misdemeanour of her lover. But even allowing all possible latitude for Jacky's pen, she was forced to acknowledge there must be some ground for her aunt to build upon. Superficial as her structures generally were, like children's card-houses, they had always something to rest upon; though (unlike them) her creations were invariably upon a gigantic scale.