All these as's considered, why, why, in the name of goodness, should you give so flat a denial? Yet have not seen the gentleman, and therefore can have no dislike either to his sense or person? I wish, my dear, you would give such a reason for your denial, a denial so strongly expressed, as one would imagine such a woman as the Countess of D. would be satisfied with, from such a one as Miss Byron.

LADY L. Perhaps, now, that Miss Byron has seen what a lady the Countess of D. is

MISS GR. And now that she has overcome the temporary surfeit

LADY L. She will change her mind.

[Are you not, my dear aunt Selby-are you not, my Lucy, distressed for me at this place? I was at the time greatly so for myself.]

HARRIET. My mind has been disturbed by Sir Hargrave's violence; and by apprehensions of fatal mischiefs that might too probably have followed the generous protection given me: wonder not, therefore, ladies, if I am unable, on a sudden, to give such reasons for having refused to listen to Lady D.'s proposal, as you require; although, at the same time, I find not in my heart the least inclination to encourage it.

MISS GR. You have had your difficulties of late, my Harriet, to contend with; and those you must look upon as a tax to be paid by a merit so conspicuous. Even in this slighter case, as you love to oblige, I can pity you for the situation you are likely to be in, betwixt the refused son and the deserving mother. But when you consider, that the plagues of the discreet proceed from other people, those of the indiscreet from themselves,

you will sit down with a just compliment to yourself and be content. You see I can be grave nowand-then, child.

HARRIET. May I deserve to be called prudent and discreet: on that condition I am willing to incur the penalty.

LADY L. Come, come; that is out of the question, my dear: so you are contented of course, or in the way to be so.

The ladies took their leave, and seemed pleased with their visit.

ness.

It is now, my dear friends, some how or other, become necessary, I think, to let you minutely into my situation, that you may advise, caution, instruct me; for I protest I am in a sort of wilders.-Pray, my Lucy, tell me-But it caunot be from love; so I don't care-Yet to lie under such a weight of obligation; and to find myself so much surpassed by these ladies-Yet it is from envy, surely that is a very bad passion. I hope my bosom has not a place in it for such a mean self-tormentor. Can it be from pride? Pride is a vice that always produces mortification: and proud you all made me of your favour.-Yet I thought it was grateful to be proud of it.

:

[I wish I were with you, Lucy. I should ask you abundance of questions, and repose my anxious heart on your faithful bosom; and at the same time, from your answers, arm it against too great a sensibility before it is too late.

But pray, don't you remember that you said, you found sighing a relief to you on a certain occasion?-I am serious, my dear. That there was a sort of you know not what of pleasure in sighing? Yet that it was involuntary?-Did you not say, that you were ready to quarrel with yourself, you

knew not why?—And, pray, had you not a fretting, gnawing pain, in your stomach, that made you I can't tell how to describe it; yet were humble, meek, as if looking out for pity from every body, and ready to pity every body? Were you not attentive to stories of people, young women especially, labouring under doubts and difficulties?-Was not your humanity raised? your self-consequence lowered? But did you not think suspense the greatest of all torments?-I think, my dear, you lived without eating or drinking; yet looked not pining, but fresh.-Your rest-I remember it was broken. In your sleep you seemed to be disturbed. You were continually rolling down mountains, or tumbling from precipices-or were borne down by tempests, carried away with sudden inundations; or sinking in deep waters; or flying from fires, thieves, robbers

How apt are we to recollect, or to try to recollect, when we are apprehensive that a case may possibly be our own, all those circumstances, of which, while another's (however dear that other might be to us) we had not any clear or adequate ideas!-But I know, that such of these as I recollect not from you, must be owing to the danger, to the terror, I was in from the violence of Sir Hargrave Pollexfen. Often and often do I dream over again what I suffered from him. I am now im. ploring mercy from him, and meet with nothing but upbraidings and menaces. He is now stopping my mouth with his handkerchief: his horrible clergyman, if a clergyman he was, is reading the service quite through; and I am contending against the legality of the asserted marriage. At other times, I have escaped; and he is pursuing me; he gains upon my flying feet; and I wake myself with endeavouring in vain to cry out for help.

But, when fancy is more propitious to me, then comes my rescuer, my deliverer: and he is sometimes a mighty prince, (dreams then make me a perfect romancer) and I am a damsel in distress. The milk-white palfrey once came in. All the marvellous takes place; and lions and tigers are slain, and armies routed by the puissance of his single arm.

Now do not these reveries convince you, that I owe all my uneasiness to what I suffered from Sir Hargrave's barbarity? I think I must take my aunt's advice; leave London; and then I shall better find out whether, as all my friends suspect, and, as, to be ingenuous, I myself now begin sometimes to fear, a passion stronger than gratitude has not taken hold of my heart. Of this I am sure; my reasoning faculties are weakened. Miss Grandison says, that in my illness at Colnebrook, I was delirious; and that the doctor they called in was afraid of my head; and should I suffer myself to be entangled in a hopeless passion, there will want no further proof that my reason has suffered.]

Adieu, my Lucy! What a letter have I written! The conclusion of it, I doubt, will of itself be a sufficient evidence of the weakness I have mentioned, both of head and heart, of your

HARRIET.

On perusal of the latter part of this letter, [which I have enclosed in books] if you can avoid it, Lucy, read it not before my uncle.

LETTER VI.

MISS HARRIET BYRON TO MISS LUCY SELBY.

Saturday, March 4. THIS morning Sir Hargrave Pollexfen made Mr. Reeves a visit. He said it was to him; but I was unluckily below; and forced to hear all he had to say, or to appear unpolite.

He proposed visiting my grandmamma and aunt Selby, in order to implore their forgiveness; but Mr. Reeves diverted him from thinking of that.

He had not sought me, he said, at Lady Betty Williams's, but from his desire (on the character he had heard of me) to pay his addresses to me in preference to every other woman. He had laid out for several opportunities to get into my company, before he heard I was to dine there. Particularly, he once had resolved to pay a visit in form to my uncle Selby, in Northamptonshire, and had got all his equipage in readiness to set out; but heard that I was come to town with Mr. and Mrs. Reeves. He actually then set out, he said, for Peterborough, with intent to propose that affair to my godfather Deane; but found that he was gone to Cambridge; and then being resolved to try his fate with me, he came to town; and hardly questioned succeeding, when he understood that my friends left me to my own choice; and knowing that he could offer such proposals, as none of the gentlemen who had made pretensions to me, were able to make. His intentions, therefore, were not sudden, and such as arose upon what he saw of me at Lady Betty Williams's; though the part I supported in the conversation there, precipitated his declaration.