Are you, under these
circumstances, freely to communicate to him what I have here written to
you? Or are you to leave him under the impression that no such private
expression of my wishes as this is in existence; and are you to state
all the conditions relating to his marriage, as if they emanated
entirely from yourself?
"If you will adopt this latter alternative, you will add one more to the
many obligations under which your friendship has placed me.
"I have serious reason to believe that the possession of my money, and
the discovery of any peculiar arrangements relating to the disposal of
it, will be objects (after my decease) of the fraud and conspiracy of an
unscrupulous person. I am therefore anxious--for your sake, in the
first place--that no suspicion of the existence of this letter should
be conveyed to the mind of the person to whom I allude. And I am equally
desirous--for Mrs. Girdlestone's sake, in the second place--that this
same person should be entirely ignorant that the legacy will pass into
Mrs. Girdlestone's possession, if your nephew is not married in the
given time. I know George's easy, pliable disposition; I dread the
attempts that will be made to practice on it; and I feel sure that the
prudent course will be, to abstain from trusting him with secrets,
the rash revelation of which might be followed by serious, and even
dangerous results.
Pages:
923
924
925
926
927
928
929
930
931
932
933
934
935
936
937
938
939
940
941
942
943
944
945
946
947