Never forget that the strongest proof that my conscience was perfectly clear in regard to that money is that I at once told you of its discovery.

It would have been perfectly easy for me to have accounted to you in a dozen different ways for my having come into possession of a little money, or even to have concealed from you the fact that I had done so; and, if I had felt myself a thief, I should certainly have taken good care that you did not know it.
"I must also thank you for your expressions of willingness to take care of my mother, in case of any thing's happening to me.

Until these last letters of yours, I had often thought, with a sense of relief, that, if I died, you would never see my mother suffer; but now any such thought is inseparably associated with bitter memories.

And my mother will not, in any event, need your help; for the money I shall have from the sale of the house, together with this which I have found, will give her all she will require.
"You must forgive me if this letter sounds hard, Mercy.

I have not your faculty of mingling endearing epithets with sharp accusations and reproaches.