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it, said she, or I shall be very miserable.-Yet (and she gasped as she spoke, with apprehension) I am ready to tremble at what the answer may be; for my sister is hard-hearted.

Lord I was going to curse thee, Lovelace ! How every instance of excellence, in this all-excelling creature, condemns thee!-Thou wilt have reason to think thyself of all men most accursed, if she die!

I then besought her, while she was capable of such glorious instances of generosity and forgiveness, to extend her goodness to a man whose heart bled in every vein of it for the injuries he had done her; and who would make it the study of his whole life to repair them.

You may let him know, said she, that I reject him with my whole heart:-Yet that, although I say this with such a determination as shall leave no room for doubt, I say it not however with passion. On the contrary, tell him, that I am trying to bring my mind into such a frame as to be able to pity him (poor perjured wretch! what has he not to answer for!); and that I shall not think myself qualified for the state I am aspiring to, if, after a few struggles more, I cannot forgive him too: And I hope, clasping her hands together, uplifted as were her eyes, my dear earthly father will set me the example my heavenly one has already set us all; and, by forgiving his fallen daughter, teach her to forgive the man, who then, I hope, will not have destroyed my eternal prospects, as he has my temporal!

Stop here, thou wretch-But I need not bid thee! For I can go no farther!

You will imagine how affecting her noble speech and behaviour were to me, at the time, when the bare recollecting and transcribing them obliged me to drop my pen.

She was silent. I proceeded-Have you no commission to employ me in; deserted as you are by all your friends;

among strangers, though, I doubt not, worthy people? Cannot I be serviceable by message, by letter writing, by attending personally, with either message or letter, your father, your uncles, your brother, your sister, Miss Howe, Lord M., or the ladies his sisters ?-Any office to be employed in to serve you, absolutely independent of my friend's wishes, or of my own wishes to oblige him? Think, madam, if I cannot ?

I thank you, sir: very heartily I thank you: but in nothing that I can at present think of, or at least resolve upon, can you do me service. I will see what return the letter I have written will bring me.-Till then

My life and my fortune, interrupted I, are devoted to your service. Permit me to observe, that here you are, without one natural friend; and (so much do I know of your unhappy case) that you must be in a manner destitute of the means to make friends

She was going to interrupt me, with a prohibitory kind of earnestness in her manner.

I beg leave to proceed, madam: I have cast about twenty ways how to mention this before, but never dared till now. Suffer me, now that I have broken the ice, to tender myself as your banker only. I know you will not be obliged you need not. You have sufficient of your own, if it were in your hands; and from that, whether you live or die, will I consent to be reimbursed. I do assure you, that the unhappy man shall never know either my offer, or your acceptance.-Only permit me this small

And down behind her chair I dropped a bank note of £100 which I had brought with me, intending somehow or other to leave it behind me: Nor shouldst thou ever have known it, had she favoured me with the acceptance of it; as I told her.

You give me great pain, Mr. Belford, said she, by these instances of your humanity. And yet, considering the

capable of such.

company I have seen you in, I am not sorry to find you Methinks I am glad, for the sake of human nature, that there could be but one such man in the world, as he, you and I know. But as to your kind offer, whatever it be, if you take it not up, you will greatly disturb me. I have no need of your kindness. I have effects enough, which I never can want, to supply my present occasions: and, if needful, can have recourse to Miss Howe. I have promised that I would-so, pray, sir, urge not upon me this favour.-Take it up yourself.—If you mean me peace and ease of mind, urge not this favour. -And she spoke with impatience.

I beg, madam, but one word

Not one, sir, till you have taken back what you have let fall. I doubt not either the honour, or the kindness, of your offer; but you must not say one word more on this subject. I cannot bear it.

She was stooping, but with pain. I therefore prevented her; and besought her to forgive me for a tender, which, I saw, had been more discomposing to her than I had hoped (from the purity of my intentions) it would be. But I could not bear to think, that such a mind as hers should be distressed: since the want of the conveniences she was used to abound in might affect and disturb her in the divine course she was in.

I repeated my offers to write to any of her friends; and told her, that, having taken the liberty to acquaint Dr. H. with the cruel displeasure of her relations, as what I presumed lay nearest her heart, he had proposed to write himself, to acquaint her friends how ill she was, if she would not take it amiss.

It was kind in the doctor, she said: but begged, that no step of that sort might be taken without her knowledge and consent. She would wait to see what effects her letter to her sister would have. All she had to hope for, was, that her father would revoke his malediction,

previous to the last blessing she should then implore: for the rest, her friends would think she could not suffer too much; and she was content to suffer for, now nothing could happen that could make her wish to live.

She retired to her chamber soon after, and was forced it seems to lie down. We all went down together; and, for an hour and a half, dwelt upon her praises; Mrs. Smith and Mrs. Lovick repeatedly expressing their astonishment, that there could be a man in the world, capable of offending, much more of wilfully injuring, such a lady; and repeating, that they had an angel in their house.-I thought they had; and that as assuredly as there is a devil under the roof of good Lord M.

I hate thee heartily!-By my faith I do!-Every hour I hate thee more than the former !—

J. BELFORD.

MR. LOVELACE TO JOHN BELFORD, ESQ.

Saturday, July 22.

HAT dost hate me for, Belford ?-And why more

and more ?-Have I been guilty of any offence thou knewest not before ?-If pathos can move such a heart as thine, can it alter facts ?-Did I not always do this incomparable creature as much justice as thou canst do her for the heart of thee, or as she can do herself? What nonsense then thy hatred, thy augmented hatred, when I still persist to marry her, pursuant to word given to thee, and to faith plighted to all my relations? But hate, if thou wilt, so thou dost but write. Thou canst not hate me so much as I do myself: and yet I know, if thou really hatedst me, thou wouldst not venture to tell

me so.

Strange, confoundedly strange, and as perverse (that is to say, as womanly) as strange, that she should refuse, and sooner choose to die (O the obscene word! and yet

how free does thy pen make with it to me!) than be mine, who offended her by acting in character, while her parents acted shamefully out of theirs, and when I am now willing to act out of my own to oblige her: yet I not to be forgiven! They to be faultless with her!—And marriage the only medium to repair all breaches, and to salve her own honour!-Surely thou must see the inconsistence of her forgiving unforgiveness, as I may call it !

But the prettiest whim of all was, to drop the bank note behind her chair, instead of presenting it on thy knees to her hand!-To make such a woman as this doubly stoop-by the acceptance, and to take it from the ground! What an ungraceful benefit-conferrer art thou! How awkward, to take it into thy head, that the best way of making a present to a lady, was to throw the present behind her chair!

I am very desirous to see what she has written to her sister; what she is about to write to Miss Howe; and what return she will have from the Harlowe-Arabella. Canst thou not form some scheme to come at the copies of these letters, or at the substance of them at least, and of that of her other correspondencies ?

But to return. One consolation arises to me, from the pretty regrets which this admirable creature seems to have in indulging reflections on the people's wedding-day. -I once thou makest her break off with saying.

She once! What?-O Belford! why didst thou not urge her to explain what she once hoped ?

What once a woman hopes, in love-matters, she always hopes, while there is room for hope and are we not both single? Can she be any man's but mine? Will I be any woman's but hers?

I never will! I never can !—And I tell thee, that I am every day, every hour, more and more in love with her : and, at this instant, have a more vehement passion for her than ever I had in my life.

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