"What fearful responsibilities you place before me,--I tremble, I dare not meet them." "It is not too late,--the irrevocable vow is not yet breathed,--the path is not yet entered.

If the mere description of duties makes you turn pale with dread, what will the reality be?
I do not seek to terrify, but to convince.

I received you as a precious charge from a dying mother, and I vowed over her grave to love, protect, and cherish you, as my own daughter.

I saw the peculiar dangers to which you were liable from your ardent genius and exquisite sensibility, and I suffered you to pass through a discipline which my wealth made unnecessary, and which you have nobly borne.

I did not wish my son to love you, not because you were the child of obscurity, but because I had constituted myself the guardian of your happiness, and I feared it would be endangered by a union with him.