The New Magdalen

"Her ladyship is waiting, sir."

Julian entered the dining-room.

I.

From MR. HORACE HOLMCROFT to MISS GRACE ROSEBERRY.

"I HASTEN to thank you, dear Miss Roseberry, for your last kind letter,

received by yesterday's mail from Canada. Believe me, I appreciate your

generous readiness to pardon and forget what I so rudely said to you at

a time when the arts of an adventuress had blinded me to the truth. In

the grace which has forgiven me I recognize the inbred sense of justice

of a true lady. Birth and breeding can never fail to assert themselves:

I believe in them, thank God, more firmly than ever.

"You ask me to keep you informed of the progress of Julian Gray's

infatuation, and of the course of conduct pursued toward him by Mercy

Merrick.

"If you had not favored me by explaining your object, I might have felt

some surprise at receiving from a lady in your position such a request

as this. But the motives by which you describe yourself as being

actuated are beyond dispute. The existence of Society, as you truly

say, is threatened by the present lamentable prevalence of Liberal

ideas throughout the length and breadth of the land. We can only hope

to protect ourselves against impostors interested in gaining a position

among persons of our rank by becoming in some sort (unpleasant as it may

be) familiar with the arts by which imposture too frequently succeeds.

If we wish to know to what daring lengths cunning can go, to what

pitiable self-delusion credulity can consent, we must watch the

proceedings--even while we shrink from them--of a Mercy Merrick and a

Julian Gray.

"In taking up my narrative again where my last letter left off, I must

venture to set you right on one point.

"Certain expressions which have escaped your pen suggest to me that you

blame Julian Gray as the cause of Lady Janet's regrettable visit to the

Refuge the day after Mercy Merrick had left her house. This is not quite

correct. Julian, as you will presently see, has enough to answer for

without being held responsible for errors of judgment in which he has

had no share. Lady Janet (as she herself told me) went to the Refuge of

her own free-will to ask Mercy Merrick's pardon for the language which

she had used on the previous day. 'I passed a night of such misery as

no words can describe'--this, I assure you, is what her ladyship really

said to me--'thinking over what my vile pride and selfishness and

obstinacy had made me say and do. I would have gone down on my knees to

beg her pardon if she would have let me. My first happy moment was when

I won her consent to come and visit me sometimes at Mablethorpe House.' "You will, I am sure, agree with me that such extravagance as this is to

be pitied rather than blamed. How sad to see the decay of the faculties

with advancing age! It is a matter of grave anxiety to consider how much

longer poor Lady Janet can be trusted to manage her own affairs. I shall

take an opportunity of touching on the matter delicately when I next see

her lawyer.