"This comes to make a request, which I
know not if the acquaintance we had
together in the early part of both our lives,
would be sufficient to apologize for the trouble
you must take in complying with it:--permit
me therefore to acquaint you, that I have long
laboured under an indisposition which my physicians
assure me is incurable, and under which
I must inevitably sink in a short time; but
whatever they say, I know it is impossible
for me to leave the world without imparting
to you a secret wholly improper to be entrusted
in a letter, but is of the utmost importance
to those concerned in it, of whom yourself
is the principal:--be assured it regards
your honour, your conscience, your justice, as
well as the eternal peace of her who conjures
you, with the utmost earnestness, to come immediately
on the receipt of this to the castle of
M----e, in the north of Ireland, where, if
you arrive time enough, you will be surprized,
tho' I flatter myself not disagreeably so, with
the unravelling a most mysterious Event.
_Yours, once known by the name of_ MATILDA,
_now_