He then told her that her uncle had already made some steps towards a general reconciliation.  The moment, Madam, that he knows you are really married, he will enter into confidence with your father upon it; having actually expressed to your mother his desire to be reconciled to you.

And what, Sir, said my mother?  What said my dear mother?

With great emotion she asked this question; holding out her sweet face, as the Captain described her, with the most earnest attention, as if she would shorten the way which his words were to have to her heart.

Your mother, Madam, burst into tears upon it:  and your uncle was so penetrated by her tenderness, that he could not proceed with the subject.  But he intends to enter upon it with her in form, as soon as he hears that the ceremony is over.

By the tone of her voice she wept.  The dear creature, thought I, begins to relent!—­And I grudged the dog his eloquence.  I could hardly bear the thought that any man breathing should have the power which I had lost, of persuading this high-souled woman, though in my own favour.  And wouldest thou think it? this reflection gave me more uneasiness at the moment than I felt from her reproaches, violent as they were; or than I had pleasure in her supposed relenting:  for there is beauty in every thing she says and does!—­Beauty in her passion!—­Beauty in her tears!—­Had the Captain been a young fellow, and of rank and fortune, his throat would have been in danger; and I should have thought very hardly of her.

O Captain Tomlinson, said she, you know not what I have suffered by this man’s strange ways!  He had, as I was not ashamed to tell him yesterday, a plain path before him.  He at first betrayed me into his power—­but when I was in it—­There she stopt.—­Then resuming—­O Sir, you know not what a strange man he has been!—­An unpolite, a rough-manner’d man!  In disgrace of his birth, and education, and knowledge, an unpolite man!—­ And so acting, as if his worldly and personal advantages set him above those graces which distinguish a gentleman.

The first woman that ever said, or that ever thought so of me, that’s my comfort, thought I!—­But this, (spoken of to her uncle’s friend, behind my back,) helps to heap up thy already-too-full measure, dearest!—­It is down in my vellum-book.

Cl.  When I look back on his whole behaviour to a poor young creature, (for I am but a very young creature,) I cannot acquit him either of great folly or of deep design.  And, last Wednesday—­There she stopt; and I suppose turned away her face.

I wonder she was not ashamed to hint at what she thought so shameful; and that to a man, and alone with him.

Capt.  Far be it from me, Madam, to offer to enter too closely into so tender a subject.  Mr. Lovelace owns, that you have reason to be displeased with him.  But he so solemnly clears himself of premeditated offence—­