Many years passed over without my ever hearing any thing of her; and it was some months after I received your letter from Aix-la-Chappelle, that the post brought me one from Ireland:  having no correspondence in that country, I was a little surprized, but much more when I opened it and found it contained these words: 

To DORILAUS.

SIR,

“This comes to make a request, which I know not if the acquaintance we had together in the early part of both our lives, would be sufficient to apologize for the trouble you must take in complying with it:—­permit me therefore to acquaint you, that I have long laboured under an indisposition which my physicians assure me is incurable, and under which I must inevitably sink in a short time; but whatever they say, I know it is impossible for me to leave the world without imparting to you a secret wholly improper to be entrusted in a letter, but is of the utmost importance to those concerned in it, of whom yourself is the principal:—­be assured it regards your honour, your conscience, your justice, as well as the eternal peace of her who conjures you, with the utmost earnestness, to come immediately on the receipt of this to the castle of M——­e, in the north of Ireland, where, if you arrive time enough, you will be surprized, tho’ I flatter myself not disagreeably so, with the unravelling a most mysterious Event.

Yours, once known by the name of MATILDA,

now

M——­E.”

I will not repeat to you, my dear Louisa, continued Dorilaus, the strange perplexity of ideas that run thro’ my mind after having read this letter:—­I was very far from guessing at the real motive of this invitation; which, however, as I once had a regard for that lady, I soon determined to obey; and having left the care of my house to a relation of mine by the mother’s side, I went directly for Ireland; but when I came there, was a little embarrassed in my mind what excuse I should make to her husband for my visit.—­Before I ventured to the castle, I made a thorough enquiry after the character of this young lady, and in what manner she lived with her lord.  Never did I hear a person more universally spoke well of:—­the poor adored her charity, affability, and condescending sweetness of disposition:—­the rich admired her wit, her virtue, and good breeding:—­her beauty, tho’ allowed inferior to few of her sex, was the least qualification that seemed deserving praise:—­to add to all this, they told me she was a pattern of conjugal affection, and the best of mothers to a numerous race of Children;—­that her lord had all the value he ought to have for so amiable a wife, and that no wedded pair ever lived together in greater harmony; and it was with the utmost concern, whoever I spoke to on this affair concluded what they related of her with saying, that so excellent an example of all that was valuable in womankind would shortly be taken from them;—­that she had long, with an unexampled patience, lingered under a severe illness which every day threatened dissolution.