But what thinkest thou is the second request she had to make to me? no other than that I would be her executor!—­Her motives will appear before thee in proper time; and then, I dare to answer, will be satisfactory.

You cannot imagine how proud I am of this trust.  I am afraid I shall too soon come into the execution of it.  As she is always writing, what a melancholy pleasure will be the perusal and disposition of her papers afford me! such a sweetness of temper, so much patience and resignation, as she seems to be mistress of; yet writing of and in the midst of present distresses! how much more lively and affecting, for that reason, must her style be; her mind tortured by the pangs of uncertainty, (the events then hidden in the womb of fate,) than the dry, narrative, unanimated style of persons, relating difficulties and dangers surmounted; the relater perfectly at ease; and if himself unmoved by his own story, not likely greatly to affect the reader!

***

SATURDAY MORNING, AUG. 5.

I am just returned from visiting the lady, and thanking her in person for the honour she has done me; and assuring her, if called to the sacred trust, of the utmost fidelity and exactness.

I found her very ill.  I took notice of it.  She said, she had received a second hard-hearted letter from her sister; and she had been writing a letter (and that on her knees) directly to her mother; which, before, she had not had the courage to do.  It was for a last blessing and forgiveness.  No wonder, she said, that I saw her affected.  Now that I had accepted of the last charitable office for her, (for which, as well as for complying with her other request, she thanked me,) I should one day have all these letters before me:  and could she have a kind one in return to that she had been now writing, to counterbalance the unkind one she had from her sister, she might be induced to show me both together—­ otherwise, for her sister’s sake, it were no matter how few saw the poor Bella’s letter.

I knew she would be displeased if I had censured the cruelty of her relations:  I therefore only said, that surely she must have enemies, who hoped to find their account in keeping up the resentments of her friends against her.

It may be so, Mr. Belford, said she:  the unhappy never want enemies.  One fault, wilfully committed, authorizes the imputation of many more.  Where the ear is opened to accusations, accusers will not be wanting; and every one will officiously come with stories against a disgraced child, where nothing dare be said in her favour.  I should have been wise in time, and not have needed to be convinced, by my own misfortunes, of the truth of what common experience daily demonstrates.  Mr. Lovelace’s baseness, my father’s inflexibility, my sister’s reproaches, are the natural consequences of my own rashness; so I must make the best of my hard lot.  Only, as these consequences follow one another so closely, while they are new, how can I help being anew affected?