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induced me to suffer you to see what is so every way unfit for your perusal. But Miss Joddrel has herself made known that she left a message with me for Mrs. Maple; what right, then, have I to withhold it? Yet how—advise me, I entreat,—how can I deliver it? And—with respect to what you will find relative to Lord Melbury—I need not, I trust, mortify myself by disclaiming, or vindicating———"
He interrupted her with warmth: "No!" he cried, "with me you can have nothing to vindicate! Of whatever would not be perfectly right, I believe you incapable."
Ellis thanked him expressively, and begged that he would now read the letter, and favour her with his counsel.
He complied, meaning to hurry it rapidly over, to gain time for a yet more interesting subject; but, struck, moved, and shocked by its contents, he was drawn from himself, drawn even from Ellis, to its writer. "Unhappy Eli-
