im not to proceed too rashly; in the mean time we must
consider what measures to pursue. You must not, my niece, you must not
be sacrificed." So saying, he left me, highly consoled that, instead of
a tyrant, I had found a friend in my new protector.

"Alfred was made acquainted with the affair, and many were the plans
projected for my benefit, and abandoned as indefeasible, till an event
happened which called forth all the fortitude of my uncle to support it,
and operated in the end to free me from persecution.

"My uncle's daughter, by his first wife, was of a very delicate and
sickly constitution, and her health evidently decreasing. After she came
to this place, she was sent to a village on one of the high hills of
Pedee, where she remained a considerable time; she then went to one of
the inland towns in North Carolina, from whence she had but just
returned with Alfred when I arrived. Afterwards I accompanied her to
Georgetown, and other places, attended by her father, so that she was
little more known in Charleston than myself. But all answered no purpose
to the restoration of her health; a confirmed hectic carried her off in
the bloom of youth.

"I was but a few months older than she; her name was Melissa, a name
which a pious grandmother had borne, and was therefore retained in the
family. Our similarity of age, and in some measure of appearance, our
being so little known in Charleston, and our names being the same,
suggested to Alfred the idea of imposing on my father, by passing off my
cousin's death as my own. This would, at least, deter Beauman from
prosecuting his intended journey to Charleston; it would also give time
for farther deliberation, and might so operate on my father's feelings
as to soften that obduracy of temper, which deeply disquieted himself
and others, and thus finally be productive of happily effecting the
designed purpose.

"My uncle was too deeply overwhelmed in grief to be particularly
consulted on this plan. He however entrusted Alfred to act with full
powers, and to use his name for my interest, if necessary. Alfred
therefore procured a publication, as of my death, in the Connecticut
papers, particularly at New London, the native place of Beauman. In
Charleston it was generally supposed that it was the niece, and not the
daughter of Col. D----, who had died.--This imposition was likewise
practised upon the sexton, who keeps the register of deaths.[A] Alfred
then wrote a letter to my