See, my dear, what a creature he had picked out!  Could you have thought there was a woman in the world who could thus express herself, and yet be vile?  But she had her principal instructions from him, and those written down too, as I have reason to think:  for I have recollected since, that I once saw this Lady Betty, (who often rose from her seat, and took a turn to the other end of the room with such an emotion, as if the joy of her heart would not let her sit still) take out a paper from her stays, and look into it, and put it there again.  She might oftener, and I not observe it; for I little thought that there could be such impostors in the world.

I could not forbear paying great attention to what she said.  I found my tears ready to start; I drew out my handkerchief, and was silent.  I had not been so indulgently treated a great while by a person of character and distinction, [such I thought her;] and durst not trust to the accent of my voice.

The pretended Miss Montague joined in on this occasion:  and drawing her chair close to me, took my other hand, and besought me to forgive her cousin; and consent to rank myself as one of the principals of a family that had long, very long, coveted the honour of my alliance.

I am ashamed to repeat to you, my dear, now I know what wretches they are, the tender, the obliging, and the respectful things I said to them.

The wretch himself then came forward.  He threw himself at my feet.  How was I beset!—­The women grasping, one my right hand, the other my left:  the pretended Miss Montague pressing to her lips more than once the hand she held:  the wicked man on his knees, imploring my forgiveness; and setting before me my happy and my unhappy prospects, as I should forgive and not forgive him.  All that he thought would affect me in former pleas, and those of Capt.  Tomlinson, he repeated.  He vowed, he promised, he bespoke the pretended ladies to answer for him; and they engaged their honours in his behalf.

Indeed, my dear, I was distressed, perfectly distressed.  I was sorry that I had given way to this visit.  For I knew not how, in tenderness to relations, (as I thought them,) so worthy, to treat so freely as he deserved, a man nearly allied to them:  so that my arguments and my resolutions were deprived of their greatest force.

I pleaded, however, my application to you.  I expected every hour, I told them, an answer from you to a letter I had written, which would decide my future destiny.

They offered to apply to you themselves in person, in their own behalf, as they politely termed it.  They besought me to write to you to hasten your answer.

I said, I was sure that you would write the moment that the event of an application to be made to a third person enabled you to write.  But as to the success of their request in behalf of their kinsman, that depended not upon the expected answer; for that, I begged their pardon, was out of the question.  I wished him well.  I wished him happy.  But I was convinced, that I neither could make him so, nor he me.