 which left to me
the possession of the family property,) she frequently visited me at Delaford. I
called her a distant relation; but I am well aware that I have in general been
suspected of a much nearer connection with her. It is now three years ago, (she
had just reached her fourteenth year,) that I removed her from school, to place
her under the care of a very respectable woman, residing in Dorsetshire, who had
the charge of four or five other girls of about the same time of life; and for
two years I had every reason to be pleased with her situation. But last
February, almost a twelvemonth back, she suddenly disappeared. I had allowed
her, (imprudently, as it has since turned out,) at her earnest desire, to go to
Bath with one of her young friends, who was attending her father there for his
health. I knew him to be a very good sort of man, and I thought well of his
daughter - better than she deserved, for, with a most obstinate and ill-judged
secrecy, she would tell nothing, would give no clue, though she certainly knew
all. He, her father, a well-meaning, but not a quick-sighted man, could really,
I believe, give no information; for he had been generally confined to the house,
while the girls were ranging over the town and making what acquaintance they
chose; and he tried to convince me, as thoroughly as he was convinced himself,
of his daughter's being entirely unconcerned in the business. In short, I could
learn nothing but that she was gone; all the rest, for eight long months, was
left to conjecture. What I thought, what I feared, may be imagined; and what I
suffered too.«
    »Good heavens!« cried Elinor, »could it be - could Willoughby! -
    The first news that reached me of her,« he continued, »came in a letter from
herself, last October. It was forwarded to me from Delaford, and I received it
on the very morning of our intended party to Whitwell; and this was the reason
of my leaving Barton so suddenly, which I am sure must at the time have appeared
strange to every body, and which I believe gave offence to some. Little did Mr.
Willoughby imagine, I suppose, when his looks censured me for incivility in
breaking up the party, that I was called away to the relief of one, whom he had
made poor and miserable; but had he known it
