’I am at present the inmate of Mr. and Mrs. Mervyn, old friends of my father.  The latter is precisely a good sort of woman, ladylike and housewifely; but for accomplishments or fancy—­good lack, my dearest Matilda, your friend might as well seek sympathy from Mrs. Teach’em;—­you see I have not forgot school nicknames.  Mervyn is a different—­quite a different being from my father, yet he amuses and endures me.  He is fat and good-natured, gifted with strong shrewd sense and some powers of humour; but having been handsome, I suppose, in his youth, has still some pretension to be a beau garcon, as well as an enthusiastic agriculturist.  I delight to make him scramble to the tops of eminences and to the foot of waterfalls, and am obliged in turn to admire his turnips, his lucerne, and his timothy grass.  He thinks me, I fancy, a simple romantic Miss, with some—­the word will be out—­beauty and some good-nature; and I hold that the gentleman has good taste for the female outside, and do not expect he should comprehend my sentiments farther.  So he rallies, hands, and hobbles (for the dear creature has got the gout too), and tells old stories of high life, of which he has seen a great deal; and I listen, and smile, and look as pretty, as pleasant, and as simple as I can, and we do very well.

’But, alas! my dearest Matilda, how would time pass away, even in this paradise of romance, tenanted as it is by a pair assorting so ill with the scenes around them, were it not for your fidelity in replying to my uninteresting details?  Pray do not fail to write three times a week at least; you can be at no loss what to say.’

FIFTH EXTRACT

’How shall I communicate what I have now to tell!  My hand and heart still flutter so much, that the task of writing is almost impossible!  Did I not say that he lived? did I not say I would not despair?  How could you suggest, my dear Matilda, that my feelings, considering I had parted from him so young, rather arose from the warmth of my imagination than of my heart?  O I was sure that they were genuine, deceitful as the dictates of our bosom so frequently are.  But to my tale—­let it be, my friend, the most sacred, as it is the most sincere, pledge of our friendship.

’Our hours here are early—­earlier than my heart, with its load of care, can compose itself to rest.  I therefore usually take a book for an hour or two after retiring to my own room, which I think I have told you opens to a small balcony, looking down upon that beautiful lake of which I attempted to give you a slight sketch.  Mervyn Hall, being partly an ancient building, and constructed with a view to defence, is situated on the verge of the lake.  A stone dropped from the projecting balcony plunges into water deep enough to float a skiff.  I had left my window partly unbarred, that, before I went to bed, I might, according to my custom, look out and see the moonlight shining upon the lake.  I