ence, you know I love you, and should not make the
sacrifice you demand a test of my regard. True, I cannot say
(and most heartily I regret it) that there exists between us the
same extravagant fondness we cherished as children--but
that is no fault of mine. Did you not return to me, each
year, colder and colder--more distant and unbrotherly--until
you drove back to their source the gushing streams of
a sister's love that flowed so strongly towards you? You ask
me to resign Charles Ellis and come to you. What can you
offer me in exchange for his true, manly affection?--to what
purpose drive from my heart a love that has been my only
solace, only consolation, for your waning regard! We have
grown up together--he has been warm and kind, when you
were cold and indifferent--and now that he claims the reward
of long years of tender regard, and my own heart is conscious
that he deserves it, you would step between us, and forbid
me yield the recompense that it will be my pride and delight
to bestow. It grieves me to write it; yet I must, Clary--for
between brother and sister there is no need of concealments;
and particularly at such a time should everything be open,
clear, explicit. Do not think I wish to reproach you. What
you are, Clarence, your false position and unfortunate education
have made you. I write it with pain--your demand
seems extremely selfish. I fear it is not of _me_ but of _yourself_
you are thinking, when you ask me to sever, at once and for
ever, my connection with a people who, you say, can only
degrade me. Yet how much happier am I, sharing their
degradation, than you appear to be! Is it regard for me
that induces the desire that I should share the life of constant
dread that I cannot but feel you endure--or do you fear that
my present connections will interfere with your own plans for
the future?

"Even did I grant it was my happiness alone you had in
view, my objections would be equally strong. I could not
forego the claims of early friendship, and estrange myself
from those who have endeared themselves to me by long
years of care--nor pass coldly and unrecognizingly by playmates
and acquaintances, because their complexions were a few
shades darker than my own. This I could never do--to me
it seems ungrateful: yet I would not reproach you because
you can--for the circumstances by which you have been surrounded
have conspired to produce that result--and I presume
you regard such conduct as necessa