I am well aware--to dwell for a moment yet on the subject of Mr.
Godfrey--that the all-profaning opinion of the world has charged him
with having his own private reasons for releasing Rachel from her
engagement, at the first opportunity she gave him. It has also reached
my ears, that his anxiety to recover his place in my estimation has been
attributed in certain quarters, to a mercenary eagerness to make his
peace (through me) with a venerable committee-woman at the Mothers'
Small-Clothes, abundantly blessed with the goods of this world, and
a beloved and intimate friend of my own. I only notice these odious
slanders for the sake of declaring that they never had a moment's
influence on my mind. In obedience to my instructions, I have exhibited
the fluctuations in my opinion of our Christian Hero, exactly as I find
them recorded in my diary. In justice to myself, let me here add that,
once reinstated in his place in my estimation, my gifted friend never
lost that place again. I write with the tears in my eyes, burning to say
more. But no--I am cruelly limited to my actual experience of persons
and things. In less than a month from the time of which I am now
writing, events in the money-market (which diminished even my miserable
little income) forced me into foreign exile, and left me with nothing
but a loving remembrance of Mr.
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