You are very kind to me, Sir, said she, and very favourable in your opinion of me.  But I hope that I cannot now be easily put out of my present course.  My declining health will more and more confirm me in it.  Those who arrested and confined me, no doubt, thought they had fallen upon the most ready method to distress me so as to bring me into all their measures.  But I presume to hope that I have a mind that cannot be debased, in essential instances, by temporal calamities.

Little do those poor wretches know of the force of innate principles, (forgive my own implied vanity, was her word,) who imagine, that a prison, or penury, can bring a right-turned mind to be guilty of a wilful baseness, in order to avoid such short-lived evils.

She then turned from me towards the window, with a dignity suitable to her words; and such as showed her to be more of soul than of body at that instant.

What magnanimity!—­No wonder a virtue so solidly founded could baffle all thy arts:  and that it forced thee (in order to carry thy accursed point) to have recourse to those unnatural ones, which robbed her of her charming senses.

The women were extremely affected, Mrs. Lovick especially; who said, whisperingly to Mrs. Smith, We have an angel, not a woman, with us, Mrs. Smith!

I repeated my offers to write to any of her friends; and told her, that, having taken the liberty to acquaint Dr. H. with the cruel displeasure of her relations, as what I presumed lay nearest to her heart, he had proposed to write himself, to acquaint her friends how ill she was, if she would not take it amiss.

It was kind in the Doctor, she said:  but begged, that no step of that sort might be taken without her knowledge or consent.  She would wait to see what effects her letter to her sister would have.  All she had to hope for was, that her father would revoke his malediction, previous to the last blessing she should then implore.  For the rest, her friends would think she could not suffer too much; and she was content to suffer:  for now nothing could happen that could make her wish to live.

Mrs. Smith went down; and, soon returning, asked, if the lady and I would not dine with her that day; for it was her wedding-day.  She had engaged Mrs. Lovick she said; and should have nobody else, if we would do her that favour.

The charming creature sighed, and shook her head.—­Wedding-day, repeated she!—­I wish you, Mrs. Smith, many happy wedding-days!—­But you will excuse me.

Mr. Smith came up with the same request.  They both applied to me.

On condition the lady would, I should make no scruple; and would suspend an engagement:  which I actually had.

She then desired they would all sit down.  You have several times, Mrs. Lovick and Mrs. Smith, hinted your wishes, that I would give you some little history of myself:  now, if you are at leisure, that this gentleman, who, I have reason to believe, knows it all, is present, and can tell you if I give it justly, or not, I will oblige your curiosity.