Permit me to be candid with you, Elizabeth. Do not marry where your heart is not. Do anything but marry only to please your father.

In the years we were fortunate enough to have you make your home with us, I did not often praise you. But my dear, I did admire you, although your clarity of purpose and single—mindedness sometimes bemused and perhaps even irritated. It is only since you are gone away to make a new life for yourself in the Colonies (for such they will always be to me) that some of this has become clear to me. The reasons for this are twofold; the first is your recent long letter in which you describe your school and your work with the children of Paradise; the second, the work of an authoress of whom I shall write below. On this basis, I have had occasion to examine my own behavior toward you and to find it lacking.

You have found a calling in life, something which is denied to most of our sex. To give this up for marriage, when there is no material need to wed, seems to me a sin.

Now, I anticipate that such a material need does indeed exist. Do not forget, my dear, that your beloved father is also my brother, and as much as I love and cherish him, I also know him too well to overlook his weaknesses. "Your brother's recent troubles are, I fear, to lay at your father's door, for he has no head for business or for money, except a propensity for spending it. In any case, it does no good to decry your father's follies; they can no longer be undone, and we must face them and deal with them. You write not one disloyal word of your father, but I imagine that he is in debt, and that to the extent that it is necessary for him to seek this Dr. Todd as a son—in—law.

Well, I will not have it. I cannot stand by and watch your father take away from you a calling upon which any husband must certainly impinge. Is the schoolhouse you write of so carefully and lovingly planned, to be abandoned so soon? Even the best—meaning, best—loved, and most rational husband in the world who claims to share his wife's dreams does not gladly share the same lady with the children of strangers.

Marry not, Elizabeth. And so that it will be possible for you to pursue your studies and your teaching, I am prepared to do what must be done. Along with this letter I enclose a contract, duly notarized, which bestows on you a monetary gift of two thousand pounds sterling, which should make it possible for you to purchase those properties of your father's and thus render him solvent. The land will thus remain in the family, in your able hands to do with as you see fit, my brother's financial difficulties will have been resolved, and you will not be obliged to marry at his whim.

You are wondering why your old aunt should take it into her head to reverse every bit of wisdom you ever heard her give over tea. There is a simple, and yet quite apt, explanation for this, my dear, and you are at the heart of it.

Shortly after you left us, when I had begun to miss your company and good conversation at my table, I finally took up that volume you so kindly gave me as a gift on the morning of your departure. You will be surprised to hear, perhaps you will even question the veracity of my claim, but it is true. I have become an admirer—a critical admirer, but an admirer no less—of Mrs. Wollstonecraft's A Vindication of the Rights of Woman. Most especially I was struck by the truth of her observation that there are many women who are worthy of education, but who are denied the reason and support of their fathers and brothers. Such women must usually struggle through the world on their own, but in your case I hope you will accept the help and direction of an aunt who loves and admires you, and respects those noble causes to which you have dedicated your life.

Aunt Augusta Merriweather

Postscript. Mr. Colin Garnham, a business acquaintance of your uncle Merriweather's, leaves tomorrow for New—York. I will pass this letter and its contents to his able care, and authorize him to spend what is necessary to get this letter into your hands at the earliest opportunity. He will deposit the funds entrusted to him with the bank in Albany. I make you this gift not from your uncle's resources, but from my own. Such is my faith in you, dear niece; I know you will fulfill my highest expectations.

* * *

Elizabeth felt for a moment as if all the air in the room had suddenly disappeared. She read the letter again, and again. Her aunt Merriweather, dour, dear old Merriweather, had simply handed her everything necessary to do what she wanted to do with her life. Security for her father, financial independence for herself. The freedom to teach her school, because it stood on land she owned.

She read the letter a fourth time, and put it down to pace the room. The polished floorboards were cool to her bare feet, but she barely noted that.

Her father.

Elizabeth stopped where she was, held her newly throbbing head in her hands. Her father had read this letter and known that his troubles were solved, but he had kept this information from her. Knowing what he knew, he had pushed, until he could push no longer, for Elizabeth's engagement to Richard Todd. These ideas did not fit together, and yet they must.

It wasn't the money, then. Or the land. In spite of his protestations of wanting to keep the land in the family, her father was so desperate to pass the patent over to Richard that he had lied to her. He had stolen this letter, hid it away from her.

Jill announced herself at the door, and Elizabeth flung it open, frightening the woman so that the tea things she carried swayed and clattered dangerously on their tray.

"Pardon me, please," Elizabeth said. "But I must speak to Nathaniel, immediately."

"Shall I fetch him, then?" the girl asked, flustered. "Is something wrong?"