communicate your charges to me. He believes that you are misled by some
misapprehension,--some slander. He is conscious that many of his actions
have been, in some respects, ambiguous, capable of being mistaken by
careless, or distant, or prejudiced observers. He believes that you have
been betrayed into some fatal error in relation to _one_ action of
his life.

If this be so, he wishes only to be told his fault, and will spare no
time and no pains to remove your mistake, if you should appear to be
mistaken.

How easily, my good mamma, may the most discerning and impartial be
misled! The ignorant and envious have no choice between truth and error.
Their tale must want something to complete it, or must possess more than
the truth demands. Something you have heard of my friend injurious to his
good name, and you condemn him unheard.

Yet this displeases me not. I am not anxious for his justification, but
only to know so much as will authorize me to conform to your wishes.

You warn me against this marriage for my own sake. You think it will be
disastrous to me.--The reasons of this apprehension would, you think,
appear just in my eyes should they be disclosed, yet you will not disclose
them. Without disclosure I cannot--as a rational creature, I
_cannot_--change my resolution. If then I marry and the evil come
that is threatened, whom have I to blame? at whose door must my
misfortunes be laid if not at hers who had it in her power to prevent the
evil and would not?

Your treatment of me can proceed only from your love; and yet all the