s of that evening had only
hurried into maturity.

"And now that I am arrived at this point in my history, Ellen,
it is necessary that I should explain to you some
circumstances which can alone account for this strange
proposal. My sister has told you, I believe, that I owed my
life as a child to this woman's unwearied devotion. The kind
of passionate attachment which she showed me, and the
influence of a strong though uncultivated mind, kept up in me
an habitual regard for her which lasted beyond my childish
years. When a boy at Eton, and even when I was at Oxford, I
used often to write to her, and always to visit her whenever I
went through London. On these occasions I always saw her
beautiful little grand-daughter, whom she brought up in the
strictest seclusion, and with the most anxious care. Even
then, I detected the dawning of a scheme which she had
evidently formed, and dwelt upon, and cherished, till it had
grown into a passionate desire to see Alice married to me. She
used occasionally to throw out hints on the subject, which I
treated as jokes; and when she confided to me, two years
before the time which I am speaking of, that her
brother-in-law, an old miserly grocer at--, had left Alice
L1,500, she looked anxiously into my face, and seemed
disappointed at the indifference with which I received this
communication, which she charged me to keep a secret. She
lived so much alone, and the nature of her character was such,
that whatever idea suggested itself strongly to her mind, took
by degrees such a hold of it, that it absorbed all other
considerations, and acquired a disproportionate magnitude. She
admitted to herself no possibility of happiness for Alice but
in a marriage with me. She had a superstitions conviction that
such an event was predestined: she had dreamt dreams and had
visions on the subject, and would gladly, I believe, have
sacrificed her life to accomplish it.

"When, therefore, by a singular train of circumstances, she
found me in a situation of hopeless difficulty and danger,
from which nothing but the immediate possession of a large sum
of money could rescue me, she offered me Alice's fortune and
hand; but annexed to this proposal the following conditions.
She said--

"'Give me a written promise, signed by yourself, and witnessed
by two persons whom I shall bring with me here, that you will
marry her, when I call upon you to do so. Give me, besides
that, a written statement of all th