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316 driven to urge them. I will write from Paris."

"Your affectionate aunt,

"."

"And so they are gone to Paris

"No," said Rachel with a deep sigh, "that is as false as all the rest. Two servants and some boxes went to Folkestone. My uncle and aunt went, I believe, to Hull, and sailed this morning for Norway. Mrs. Hopkinson, let me tell you all the truth at once; as my relations, I feel deeply the disgrace that has fallen on them, the misery, the wide spread ruin they have brought on others; but as friends, I cannot affect to regret them. The Baroness is my mother's only sister; I would have loved her, if she would have let me, in the very young days when my affections were warm—but it was impossible. There was nothing genial in her treatment of me, nothing true in her intercourse with others; I cannot tell you how artificial, how mean, with all its splendour, our life was. She has