The latter was very inquisitive to know why Clifford had gone, and what he had avowed; and Lucy, scarcely able to answer, threw everything on the promised letter of the night.
"I am glad," muttered the squire to her, "that he is going to write; for, somehow or other, though I questioned him very tightly, he slipped through my cross-examination, and bursting out at once as to his love for you, left me as wise about himself as I was before: no doubt (for my own part I don't see what should prevent his being a great man incog.)this letter will explain all!" Late that night the letter came.

Lucy, fortunately for her, was alone in her room; she opened it, and read as follows:-- CLIFFORD'S LETTER.
I have promised to write to you, and I sit down to perform that promise.

At this moment the recollection of your goodness, your generous consideration, is warm within me: and while I must choose calm and common words to express what I ought to say, my heart is alternately melted and torn by thoughts which would ask words, oh how different! Your father has questioned me often of my parentage and birth,--I have hitherto eluded his interrogatories.

Learn now who I am.

In a wretched abode, surrounded by the inhabitants of poverty and vice, I recall my earliest recollections.