I never had any faith in the stories that go current among country girls, of specters, familiars, and demons; yet I see not any other way to account for this wretch’s successful villany, and for his means of working up his specious delusions, but by supposing, (if he be not the devil himself,) that he has a familiar constantly at his elbow.  Sometimes it seems to me that this familiar assumes the shape of that solemn villain Tomlinson:  sometimes that of the execrable Sinclair, as he calls her:  sometimes it is permitted to take that of Lady Betty Lawrance —­but, when it would assume the angelic shape and mien of my beloved friend, see what a bloated figure it made!

’Tis my opinion, my dear, that you will be no longer safe where you are, than while the V. is in the country.  Words are poor!—­or how could I execrate him!  I have hardly any doubt that he has sold himself for a time.  Oh! may the time be short!—­or may his infernal prompter no more keep covenant with him than he does with others!

I enclose not only the rough draught of my long letter mentioned above, but the heads of that which the young fellow thought he delivered into your own hands at Hampstead.  And when you have perused them, I will leave to you to judge how much reason I had to be surprised that you wrote me not an answer to either of those letters; one of which you owned you had received, (though it proved to be his forged one,) the other delivered into your own hands, as I was assured; and both of them of so much concern to your honour; and still now much more surprised I must be, when I received a letter from Mrs. Townsend, dated June 15, from Hampstead, importing, ’That Mr. Lovelace, who had been with you several days, had, on the Monday before, brought Lady Betty and his cousin, richly dressed, and in a coach-and-four, to visit you:  who, with your own consent, had carried you to town with them—­to your former lodgings; where you still were:  that the Hampstead women believed you to be married; and reflected upon me as a fomenter of differences between man and wife:  that he himself was at Hampstead the day before; viz.  Wednesday the 14th; and boasted of his happiness with you; inviting Mrs. Moore, Mrs. Bevis, and Miss Rawlins, to go to town, to visit his spouse; which they promised to do:  that he declared that you were entirely reconciled to your former lodgings:—­and that, finally, the women at Hampstead told Mrs. Townsend, that he had very handsomely discharged theirs.’

I own to you, my dear, that I was so much surprised and disgusted at these appearances against a conduct till then unexceptionable, that I was resolved to make myself as easy as I could, and wait till you should think fit to write to me.  But I could rein-in my impatience but for a few days; and on the 20th of June I wrote a sharp letter to you; which I find you did not receive.

What a fatality, my dear, has appeared in your case, from the very beginning till this hour!  Had my mother permitted——­