undertake this journey alone; so let me implore you to be careful of your health. My poor uncle is so much worse, that I fear all will soon be over. Angels guard and bless my Mary, Prays her fond husband, DELAWARD. THE COUNTESS OF DELAWARD TO THE EARL OF DELAWARD. I ARRIVED here much less fatigued than could be expected, my beloved Charles; and found poor Augusta dangerously ill with a violent fever. She knows no one, raves incessantly, and the physicians entertain great doubts of her recovery, unless a speedy change occurs in the disease. Her unhappy father and mother are in a state of mind impossible to be described. My arrival affected them to tears; for they looked on it, and with reason, as a proof of my perfect conviction of her innocence. "You do not, then, believe our child guilty?" said Lord Vernon. "Never could I harbour such a belief for a moment," answered I; "for I have known her too long and too well." "Bless you for that!" replied Lady Vernon, bursting into tears. They say that, for the first two days after she left Annandale House, she appeared tranquil, but terribly depressed in spirits. At the expiration of that time, a packet of newspapers, one or two vile caricatures, and a coarse anonymous letter, were brought to her; after the perusal of which she was seized with violent fits of trembling, and an acute pain in the head, which the physician pronounced to be an attack of brain-fever, induced by severe mental anguish. I have just been sitting by the bedside of the sufferer, and her ravings have shocked me. "Do not let Lord Nottingham learn that I loved him, I implore you!" she repeatedly utters. "It would be dreadful were he to know my affection ; I never could see him again. Oh, why am I married? Mary Delaward said, that married women must not have male friends. Do not, in mercy, tell her that I love him! She never would look on me again, were she made acquainted with my guilt. Oh, Caroline, do not leave me alone with him, for I tremble lest he should look at me, and discover the passion that is consuming me! Do not tell me that he loves me; say, rather, that he hates me ! Yet, no-repeat once, only once again, that he loves me, and then let me die! Who said that I was innocent? Oh, it was my father and mother: I remember it now. But they did not know that I loved Lord Nottingham; if they did, they would think me guilty, and hate me. Do not, do not reveal the dark secret to them; but let it be buried with me when I am hid in the grave! Burn all those horrible newspapersall-all! suffer not one to escape. See! they are posted on every wall, every house-on the trees ay, and on the clouds! and the whole world are reading them, and chattering, and jibbering, and screaming my name; and the trumpets are proclaiming it all through the earth, and every finger is pointing at me! Oh, 'tis dread ful! Hide me hide me deep, deep in the earth; ay, even in the dark grave!" It is thus, my beloved, that she has raved during the two hours I have been sitting by her bedside; and so piteous are her accents, that they have pierced my very heart. My fears are verified. She loves Lord Nottingham; but this unhappy passion is the extent of her error, as all her ravings denote. The revolting statements in the papers, so cruelly sent to her, have overpowered her already excited mind. Poor dear Augusta, with all her youth, beauty, and innocence! — bitterly has she atoned for her indiscreet, her fatal choice of a husband! She has been more tranquil for the last three hours, and has now fallen into a calm sleep. God grant that she may be relieved! To-morrow you shall hear again from your own MARY. |