nd say highly
culpable levity, sacrificed the happiness of two as honest hearts
as ever beat in the human breast; I would say I pity you, but I can
hardly expect your own peace to have suffered.

"Mine is a responsible and sacred calling; and feeling it to be
such, I want, when I marry, a woman who will _aid_, not _hinder_ me
in my arduous duties; I have, as far as human infirmity permits,
done with the world and its pleasures; but I am but mortal, and who
knows to what frivolity, nay to what sin, but for the merciful
interposition of God, you might have led me; and that, while bound
to teach and guide others, I might, in my daily conduct, have
contradicted the truths I was bound to enforce.

"On first coming to reside here, I was much pleased with Miss
Fortescue, and I felt that with her, I could be happy, but her
reserve made me fancy her indifferent to me, and I judged she could
not return my love; and while her conduct increased my esteem, I
resolved that I would not forfeit her friendship by persevering in
attentions, I feared, she cared not for. You came: your beauty
struck me; your fascinating manners made an impression I could not
resist; your seeming pleasure in my attentions misled me, and my
heart was enslaved ere my judgment could act. But no more! you have
yourself, undrawn the veil, and humbly do I thank the merciful
Providence that has thus over-ruled things, and interfered to save
me from--, I hardly know what. You can scarcely wonder that I
avoided you, after what I heard; and it was not till to-day I could
sufficiently command my feelings, to stay at Mrs. Fortescue's, and
see you; it is not that I still love you, for I cannot love the
woman I no longer respect. I do not hate you; but I do sincerely
pity you, and humbly, and fervently do I pray that you may, ere too
late, see the errors of your conduct. You, by your own confession,
deem coquetry a venial error; can that be such, from which come
such cruel and mischievous results. But no more. I forgive you most
freely, and shall ever fervently pray that you may see and feel how
inimical to peace _here_, as well as _hereafter_, is such conduct
as you have shown.

"Ever your sincere friend, F.B."

No words can do justice to the agony of Beatrice's feelings, as she
read the foregoing letter. She was thunderstruck; here was a blow to
her happiness, how completely was she caught in he