It told me that the writer had bred her in secrecy from her birth, had blotted out all trace of her existence, and that if the writer were to die before the child became a woman, she would be left entirely friendless, nameless, and unknown.

It asked me to consider if I would, in that case, finish what the writer had begun." I listened in silence and looked attentively at him.
"Your early recollection, my dear, will supply the gloomy medium through which all this was seen and expressed by the writer, and the distorted religion which clouded her mind with impressions of the need there was for the child to expiate an offence of which she was quite innocent.

I felt concerned for the little creature, in her darkened life, and replied to the letter." I took his hand and kissed it.
"It laid the injunction on me that I should never propose to see the writer, who had long been estranged from all intercourse with the world, but who would see a confidential agent if I would appoint one.
I accredited Mr.Kenge.The lady said, of her own accord and not of his seeking, that her name was an assumed one.

That she was, if there were any ties of blood in such a case, the child's aunt.

That more than this she would never (and he was well persuaded of the steadfastness of her resolution) for any human consideration disclose.