Think for me, my good Norton; think what my unhappiness must be both as a wife and a mother.  What restless days, what sleepless nights; yet my own rankling anguish endeavoured to be smoothed over, to soften the anguish of fiercer spirits, and to keep them from blazing out to further mischief!  O this naughty, naughty girl, who knew so well what she did; and who could look so far into consequences, that we thought she would have died rather than have done as she had done!

Her known character for prudence leaves her absolutely without excuse.  How then can I offer to plead for her, if, through motherly indulgence, I would forgive her myself?—­And have we not moreover suffered all the disgrace that can befall us?  Has not she?

If now she has so little liking to his morals, has she not reason before to have as little?  Or has she suffered by them in her own person?—­O my good woman, I doubt—­I doubt—­Will not the character of the man make one doubt an angel, if once in his power?  The world will think the worst.  I am told it does.  So likewise her father fears; her brother hears; and what can I do?

Our antipathy to him she knew before, as well as his character.  These therefore cannot be new motives without a new reason.—­O my dear Mrs. Norton, how shall I, how can you, support ourselves under the apprehensions to which these thoughts lead!

He continually pressing her, you say, to marry him:  his friends likewise.  She has reason, no doubt she has reason, for this application to us:  and her crime is glossed over, to bring her to us with new disgrace!  Whither, whither, does one guilty step lead the misguided heart!—­And now, truly, to save a stubborn spirit, we are only to be sounded, that the application may be occasionally retracted or denied!

Upon the whole:  were I inclined to plead for her, it is now the most improper of all times.  Now that my brother Harlowe has discouraged (as he last night came hither on purpose to tell us) Mr. Hickman’s insinuated application; and been applauded for it.  Now, that my brother Antony is intending to carry his great fortune, through her fault, into another family:—­she expecting, no doubt, herself to be put into her grandfather’s estate, in consequence of a reconciliation, and as a reward for her fault:  and insisting still upon the same terms which she offered before, and which were rejected—­Not through my fault, I am sure, rejected!

From all these things you will return such an answer as the case requires.  It might cost me the peace of my whole life, at this time, to move for her.  God forgive her!  If I do, nobody else will.  And let it, for your own sake, as well as mine, be a secret that you and I have entered upon this subject.  And I desire you not to touch upon it again but by particular permission:  for, O my dear, good woman, it sets my heart a bleeding in as many streams as there are veins in it!

Yet think me not impenetrable by a proper contrition and remorse—­But what a torment is it to have a will without a power!