I will give the whole contents to my
readers.

"My dear Valerie,

"I will not attempt to account for the extreme predilection which I, an
old woman in comparison, immediately imbibed for you before we had been
an hour in company. Some feelings are unaccountable and inexplicable,
but I felt a sympathy, a mesmeric attraction, if I may use the term,
which was uncontrollable at our first meeting, and which increased every
day during our residence together. It was not the feeling of a mother
towards a child--at least I think not, for it was mingled with a certain
degree of awe and presentiment of evil if ever we parted again. I felt
as if you were my _fate_, and never has this feeling departed from me.
On the contrary, now that we separate, it has become stronger than ever.
How little do we know of the mysteries of the mind as well as of the
body! We know that we are fearfully and wonderfully made, and that is
all. That there are influences and attractions uncontrollable and
unexplained I feel certain. Often have I reflected and wondered on this
as I have lain in bed and meditated `even to madness,' but have been
unable to remove the veil. (Alas, poor Lady R--, thought I, I doubt it
not, you were madder than I thought you were.) Imagine, then, my grief
and horror when I found that you were determined to leave me, dear
Valerie. It was to me as the sentence of death; but I felt that I could
not resist; it was my fate, and who can oppose its decrees? It would
indeed have pained your young and generous heart if you knew how I
suffered, and still suffer from your desertion; but I considered it as a
judgment on me--a visitation upon me for the crimes of my early years,
and which I am now about to confide to you, as the only person in whom I
feel confidence, and that justice may be done to one whom I have greatly
injured. I would not die without reparation, and that reparation I
entrust to you, as from my own pen I can explain that without which,
with all my good intentions towards the party, reparation might be
difficult. But I must first make you acquainted with the cause of
crime, and to do this you must hear the events of my early life.

"My father, Sir Alexander Moystyn, had four children, two sons and two
daughters. I was the first-born, then my two brothers, and afterwards,
at an interval, my sister, so that there was a difference of eight years
between me and my sister, Ellen. Our mother died in giving bir