If you would add another
obligation to that already conferred upon me, _leave that terrible
house at once_. What I have seen in it, you know; what may happen to
you, if you persist in remaining there, I tremble to think. For the
sake of your widowed mother and only sister, you ought not to expose
yourself to a risk which is _worse than useless_. I never wish to
hear of River Hall being let again. Immediately I come of age, I
shall sell the place; and if anything could give me happiness in
this world, it would be to hear the house was razed to the ground.
Pray! pray! listen to a warning, which, believe me, is not idly
given, and leave a place which has already been the cause of so much
misery to yours, gratefully and sincerely,
"HELENA ELMSDALE."
It is no part of this story to tell the rapture with which I gazed upon
the writing of my "lady-love." Once I had heard Miss Blake remark, when
Mr. Craven was remonstrating with her on her hieroglyphics, that "Halana
wrote an 'unmaning hand,' like all the rest of the English," and, to
tell the truth, there was nothing particularly original or
characteristic about Miss Elmsdale's calligraphy.
But what did that signify to me? If she had strung pearls together, I
should not have valued them one-half so much as I did the dear words
which revealed her interest in me.
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