I read this letter with mingled feelings of indignation and

delight--indignation, because of the cruelties to which the worthless

mother and the base suitor subjected one so dear and innocent

delight, since the consent which she now yielded placed the means

of saving her at my control. The consent was to flight and clandestine

marriage, to which I had, with the assistance of our mutual friend,

endeavored to persuade her, in several instances, before.

The question now was, how to effect this object, since we had

no opportunities for communication; but, before I took any steps

in the matter, I made it a point of duty to deprive the infamous

attorney, Perkins, of his means of power over the unhappy family.

I determined to pay his legal charges; and William Edgerton, at

my request, readily undertook this part of the business. They were

found to be extortionate, and far beyond anything either warranted

by the practice or the fee bill. Edgerton counselled me to resist

the claim; but the subject was too delicate in all its relations,

and my own affair with Perkins would have made my active opposition

seem somewhat the consequence of malice and inveterate hostility.

I preferred to pay the excess, wnich was done by Edgerton, rather

than have any further dispute or difficulty with one whom I so

much despised. Complete satisfaction was entered upon the records

of the court, and a certified discharge, under the hand of Perkins

himself--which he gave with a reluctance full of mortification--was

sent in a blank envelope to Mrs. Clifford. She was thus deprived

of the only excuse--if, indeed, such a woman ever needs an excuse

for wilfulness--for persecuting her unhappy daughter on the score

of the attorney.

But the possession of this document effected no sort of change in

her conduct. She pursued her victim with the same old tenacity. It

was not to favor Perkins that she strove for this object: it was

to baffle ME. That blind heart, which misguides all of us in turn,

was predominant in her, and rendered her totally incapable of

seeing the cruel consequences to her daughter which her perseverance

threatened. Julia was now so feeble as scarcely to leave her

chamber; the physician was daily in attendance; and, though I could

not propose to make use of his services in promoting a design which

would subject him to the reproach of the grossest treachery, yet,

without counsel, he took it upon him plainly to assure the mother

that the disorder of her daughter arose solely from her mental

afflictions. He went farther. Mrs. Clifford, whose garrulity was

as notorious as her vanity and folly, herself took occasion, when

this was told her, to ascribe the effect to me; and, with her

own coloring, she continued, by going into a long history of our

"course of wooing." The doctor availed himself of these statements

to suggest the necessity of a compromise, assuring Mrs. Clifford

that I was really a more deserving person than she thought me, and,

in short, that some concessions must be made, if it was her hope

to save her daughter's life.




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