Mr. Ayrtoun's presence in the family at Bath being by this means not altogether so material, he made frequent excursions to his estate, which was but a few miles westward of Ely, and here it was that one morning he found a letter lying on his writing table, with the London post-mark on it, and directed in a vulgar hand, with which he was totally unacquainted; having opened it, he read the following words:

"SUR,"

"That villin Willim has forsaken a poor young woman, after robbin hur of hur virginity, and gettin hur with child, which she is now lying in off, and all for love of his mistress.

"If you watch them in the morning at breakfast, you will find them out to a sartainty.

"So no more at present, from your Honor's humble servant,

"Some one in the Secret."

Nothing could possibly exceed the surprise excited by this extraordinary epistle. The slightest suspicion of his wife's incontinency had never once entered the mind of Mr. Ayrtoun, but the reverse, he conceived her to be as chaste as Diana, yet, in one moment the assiduities of William rushed upon him with ineffable sensibility, and the green-eyed monster with all his poisons and daggers stood aghast before him. In the next, the letter appeared to be the invention of malice, and his wife's exquisite little form arrayed in the pure robes of exquisite innocence, stood all chaste and justified before him.

Again he indulged a thousand fleeting terrors. He contemplated the probable superior prowess of his rainbow rival, the opportunities which his own absence afforded a libidinous woman. He now began to suspect his own abilities, and to condemn himself for a venture of so disproportionate a nature. But after a variety of thoughts and suggestions, the whole were consolidated into curiosity, and he resolved to make assurance double sure, by being an eye-witness, if possible, to his wife's strict propriety of conduct.