is my motto; which signifies, my love, the honest and open confidence which a
man ought to entertain when he is acting openly, and without any sense of doing
wrong.«
    Such being Butler's humour, he accepted the Captain's defiance to a twopenny
hit at backgammon, and handed the letter to his wife, observing the post-mark
was York, but, if it came from her friend Mrs. Bickerton, she had considerably
improved her handwriting, which was uncommon at her years.
    Leaving the gentlemen to their game, Mrs. Butler went to order something for
supper, for Captain Duncan had proposed kindly to stay the night with them, and
then carelessly broke open her letter. It was not from Mrs. Bickerton; and,
after glancing over the first few lines, she soon found it necessary to retire
to her own bedroom, to read the document at leisure.
 

                             Chapter Forty-Seventh

 Happy thou art! then happy be,
 Nor envy me my lot;
 Thy happy state I envy thee,
 And peaceful cot.
                                                        Lady Charlotte Campbell.
 
The letter, which Mrs. Butler, when retired into her own apartment, perused with
anxious wonder, was certainly from Effie, although it had no other signature
than the letter E.; and although the orthography, style, and penmanship, were
very far superior not only to anything which Effie could produce, who, though a
lively girl, had been a remarkably careless scholar, but even to her more
considerate sister's own powers of composition and expression. The manuscript
was a fair Italian hand, though something stiff and constrained - the spelling
and the diction that of a person who had been accustomed to read good
composition, and mix in good society.
    The tenor of the letter was as follows: -
 
        »My Dearest Sister, - At many risks I venture to write to you, to inform
        you that I am still alive, and, as to worldly situation, that I rank
        higher than I could expect or merit. If wealth, and distinction, and an
        honourable rank, could make a woman happy, I have them all; but you,
        Jeanie, whom the world might think placed far beneath me in all these
        respects, are far happier than I am. I have had means of hearing of your
        welfare, my dearest Jeanie, from time to time - I think I should have
        broken my heart otherwise. I have learned with great pleasure of your
        increasing family. We have not been worthy of such a blessing; two
        infants have been successively removed, and we are now childless - God