life, and even the thorns and stings were almost lost in
their bright blossoms. And she could hardly have lived on without much
either of temptation or sorrow. I am glad of your testimony to Rachel's
effectiveness, I wrote it out and sent it up to the Homestead. There
was a note this morning requesting Edward to come in to see Maddox, and
Ailie is gone with him, thinking she may get leave to see poor Maria.
Think of writing 'Edward and Ailie again! Dr. Long and Harry are gone
with them. The broken thread is better pieced by Harry than by the
Doctor; but he wants Ailie and me to go and stay at Belfast. Now I must
hear Rose read, in order to bring both her and myself to our reasonable
senses."

"5 P. M.

"They have been returned about an hour, and I must try to give you
Edward's account of his interview. Maddox has quite dropped his mask,
and seems to have been really touched by being brought into contact with
Edward again, and, now it is all up with him, seemed to take a kind of
pleasure in explaining the whole web, almost, Edward said, with vanity
at his own ingenuity. His earlier history was as he used to represent it
to Edward. He was a respectable ironmonger's son, with a taste for art;
he was not allowed to indulge it, and then came rebellion, and breaking
away from home. He studied at the Academy for a few years, but wanted
application, and fancied he had begun too late, tried many things and
spent a shifty life, but never was consciously dishonest till after he
had fallen in with Edward; and the large sums left uninquired for in his
hands became a temptation to one already inclined to gambling. His own
difficulties drove him on, and before he ventured on the grand stroke,
he had been in a course of using the sums in his hands for his own
purposes. The finding poor Maria open to the admiration he gave her
beauty, put it into his head to make a tool of her; and this was not the
first time he had used Edward's seal, or imitated his writing. No wonder
there was such a confusion in the accounts as told so much against
Edward. He told the particulars, Edward says, with the strangest mixture
of remorse and exultation. At last came the journey to Bohemia, and his
frauds became the more easy, until he saw there must be a bankruptcy,
and made the last bold stroke, investing the money abroad in his own
name, so that he would have been ready to escape if Edward had come
home