Myrvin had done but his duty indeed, but Mr.
Hamilton knew well there were very few young men who would have acted as he had done, when conscious that his affection was returned with all the enthusiasm and devotedness of a disposition such as Emmeline's.

How few but would have played with those feelings, tortured her by persuasions to forget duty for the sake of love; but Arthur had not done this, and the father's heart swelled towards him in gratitude and esteem; even while he knew the hopelessness of his love, he felt for the anguish which his sympathy told him Arthur must endure.

After more deliberation and thought than he could have believed necessary for such a simple thing as to write a letter, Mr.Hamilton did achieve his object, retaining a copy of his epistle, to prove to his child he had been earnest in his assurances that Arthur's character should be cleared.
Painfully agitated by the tale she had heard, and this unexpected confidence of her father, Emmeline glanced her eye over the paper, and read as follows:-- "_To the Rev.Arthur Myrvin, Hanover_.
"MY DEAR MYRVIN .-- You will be no doubt astonished at receiving this letter, brief as I intend it to be, from one with whom you parted in no very friendly terms, and who has, I grieve to own, given you but little reason to believe me your friend.

When a man has been unjust and prejudiced, it becomes his peremptory duty, however pride may rebel, to do all in his power to atone for it by an honourable reparation, both in word and deed, towards him he may have injured.

Such, my young friend, is at present our relative position, and I am at a loss to know how best to express my sense of your honourable conduct and my own injustice, which occasioned a degree of harshness in my manner towards you when we separated, which, believe me, I now recall both with regret and pain.
Circumstances have transpired in the parish once under your care, which have convinced not only me, but all those still more violently prejudiced against you, that your fair fame was tarnished by the secret machinations and insidious representations of an enemy, and not by the faulty nature of your conduct; and knowing this, we most earnestly appeal to the nobleness of your nature for forgetfulness of the past, and beg you will endeavour henceforward to regard those as your sincere friends whom you have unhappily had too much reason to believe otherwise.
"For myself, my dear Myrvin, I do not doubt that you will do this, for candidly I own, that only now I have learned the true nature of your character.