“But was not she a very low woman?”

“Yes; which I objected to, but he would not regard.  Money, money, was all that he wanted.  Her father was a grazier, her grandfather had been a butcher, but that was all nothing.  She was a fine woman, had had a decent education, was brought forward by some cousins, thrown by chance into Mr Elliot’s company, and fell in love with him; and not a difficulty or a scruple was there on his side, with respect to her birth.  All his caution was spent in being secured of the real amount of her fortune, before he committed himself.  Depend upon it, whatever esteem Mr Elliot may have for his own situation in life now, as a young man he had not the smallest value for it.  His chance for the Kellynch estate was something, but all the honour of the family he held as cheap as dirt.  I have often heard him declare, that if baronetcies were saleable, anybody should have his for fifty pounds, arms and motto, name and livery included; but I will not pretend to repeat half that I used to hear him say on that subject.  It would not be fair; and yet you ought to have proof, for what is all this but assertion, and you shall have proof.”

“Indeed, my dear Mrs Smith, I want none,” cried Anne.  “You have asserted nothing contradictory to what Mr Elliot appeared to be some years ago.  This is all in confirmation, rather, of what we used to hear and believe.  I am more curious to know why he should be so different now.”

“But for my satisfaction, if you will have the goodness to ring for Mary; stay:  I am sure you will have the still greater goodness of going yourself into my bedroom, and bringing me the small inlaid box which you will find on the upper shelf of the closet.”

Anne, seeing her friend to be earnestly bent on it, did as she was desired.  The box was brought and placed before her, and Mrs Smith, sighing over it as she unlocked it, said—­

“This is full of papers belonging to him, to my husband; a small portion only of what I had to look over when I lost him.  The letter I am looking for was one written by Mr Elliot to him before our marriage, and happened to be saved; why, one can hardly imagine.  But he was careless and immethodical, like other men, about those things; and when I came to examine his papers, I found it with others still more trivial, from different people scattered here and there, while many letters and memorandums of real importance had been destroyed.  Here it is; I would not burn it, because being even then very little satisfied with Mr Elliot, I was determined to preserve every document of former intimacy.  I have now another motive for being glad that I can produce it.”

This was the letter, directed to “Charles Smith, Esq.  Tunbridge Wells,” and dated from London, as far back as July, 1803:  —­