It would be affectation, or worse, in me to
doubt that you will grant it. But, in a matter so delicate, I venture to
ask you for something more: the mother of my ever and only beloved Julia
is a lady of high breeding and sentiments: she will not let her daughter
enter any family without a cordial invitation from its head. Indeed she
has just told me so. I ask, therefore, not your bare consent, of which I
am sure, since my happiness for life depends on it, but a consent so
gracefully worded--and who can do this better than you?--as to gratify
the just pride and sensibilities of the high-minded family about to
confide its brightest ornament to my care.
"My dear father, in the midst of felicity almost more than mortal, the
thought has come that this letter is my first step towards leaving the
paternal roof under which I have been so happy all my life, thanks to
you. I should indeed be unworthy of all your goodness if this thought
caused me no emotion.
"Yet I do but yield to Nature's universal law. And, should I be master of
my own destiny, I will not go far from you.
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