On reperusing the letter, she could not help observing the staggering and
unsatisfactory condition of those who have risen to distinction by undue
paths, and the outworks and bulwarks of fiction and falsehood, by which
they are under the necessity of surrounding and defending their
precarious advantages. But she was not called upon, she thought, to
unveil her sister's original history--it would restore no right to any
one, for she was usurping none--it would only destroy her happiness, and
degrade her in the public estimation. Had she been wise, Jeanie thought
she would have chosen seclusion and privacy, in place of public life and
gaiety; but the power of choice might not be hers. The money, she
thought, could not be returned without her seeming haughty and unkind.
She resolved, therefore, upon reconsidering this point, to employ it as
occasion should serve, either in educating her children better than her
own means could compass, or for their future portion. Her sister had
enough, was strongly bound to assist Jeanie by any means in her power,
and the arrangement was so natural and proper, that it ought not to be
declined out of fastidious or romantic delicacy.
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