There never was a creature so criminal, said your father, looking with displeasure at me, who had not some weak heads to pity and side with her.

I wept.  Your mother was so good as to take me by the hand; come, good woman, said she, come along with me.  You have too much reason to be afflicted with what afflicts us, to want additions to your grief.

But, my dearest young lady, I was more touched for your sake than for my own; for I have been low in the world for a great number of years; and, of consequence, have been accustomed to snubs and rebuffs from the affluent.  But I hope that patience is written as legibly on my forehead, as haughtiness on that of any of my obligers.

Your mother led me to her chamber; and there we sat and wept together for several minutes, without being able to speak either of us one word to the other.  At last she broke silence, asking me, if you were really and indeed so ill as it was said you were?

I answered in the affirmative; and would have shown her your last letter; but she declined seeing it.

I would fain have procured from her the favour of a line to you, with her blessing.  I asked, what was intended by your brother and sister?  Would nothing satisfy them but your final reprobation?—­I insinuated, how easy it would be, did not your duty and humility govern you, to make yourself independent as to circumstances; but that nothing but a blessing, a last blessing, was requested by you.  And many other thins I urged in your behalf.  The following brief repetition of what she was pleased to say in answer to my pleas, will give you a notion of it all; and of the present situation of things.

She said, ’She was very unhappy!—­She had lost the little authority she once had over her other children, through one child’s failing! and all influence over Mr. Harlowe and his brothers.  Your father, she said, had besought her to leave it to him to take his own methods with you; and, (as she valued him,) to take no step in your favour unknown to him and your uncles; yet she owned, that they were too much governed by your brother.  They would, however, give way in time, she knew, to a reconciliation—­they designed no other, for they all still loved you.

’Your brother and sister, she owned, were very jealous of your coming into favour again;—­yet could but Mr. Morden have kept his temper, and stood her son’s first sallies, who (having always had the family grandeur in view) had carried his resentment so high, that he knew not how to descend, the conferences, so abruptly broken off just now, would have ended more happily; for that she had reason to think that a few concessions on your part, with regard to your grandfather’s estate, and your cousin’s engaging for your submission as from proper motives, would have softened them all.

’Mr. Brand’s account of your intimacy with the friend of the obnoxious man, she said, had, for the time very unhappy effects; for before that she had gained some ground:  but afterwards dared not, nor indeed had inclination, to open her lips in your behalf.  Your continued intimacy with that Mr. Belford was wholly unaccountable, and as wholly inexcusable.