that you should have so hastily resolved on so important
a step, and have been satisfied with so incomplete an explanation of
circumstances which appeared to you, as well as to myself, to show that
Guy's character was yet quite unsettled, and his conduct such as to
create considerable apprehension that he was habitually extremely
imprudent, to say the least of it, in the management of his own affairs.
How much more unfit, therefore, to have the happiness of another
intrusted to him? I believe—indeed, I understood you to have declared
to me that you were resolved never to allow the engagement to be
renewed, unless he should, with the deference which is only due to
you as his guardian, consent to clear up the mystery with which he
has thought fit to invest all his pecuniary transactions, and this, it
appears, he refuses, as he persists in denying all explanation of his
demand for that large sum of money. As to the cheque, which certainly
was applied to discreditable uses, though I will not suffer myself to
suppose that Guy was in collusion with his uncle, yet it is not at
all improbable that Dixon, not being a very scrupulous person, may, on
hearing of the difficulties in which his nephew has been placed, come
forward to relieve him from his embarrassment, in the hope of further
profit, by thus establishing a claim on his gratitude. In fact, this
proof of secretly renewed intercourse with Dixon rather tends to
increase the presumption that there is something wrong. I am not writing
this in the expectation that the connection should be entirely broken
off, for that, indeed, would be out of the question as things stand at
present, but for my little cousin's sake, as well as his own, I entreat
of you to pause. They are both extremely young—so young, that if there
was no other ground, many persons would think it advisable to wait a few
years; and why not wait until the time fixed by his grandfather for
his coming into possession of his property? If the character of his
attachment to Amabel is firm and true, the probation may be of infinite
service to him, as keeping before him, during the most critical period
of his life, a powerful motive for restraining the natural impetuosity
of his disposition; while, on the other hand, if this should prove
to have been a mere passing fancy for the first young lady into whose
society he has been thrown on terms of easy familiar intercourse, you
will then have the satisfaction of reflecting that your care and caution
have preserved your daughter from a life