Near the window sat Mr. John Harlowe, his face and his body turned from the sorrowing company; his eyes red and swelled.

My cousin Antony, at his re-entering the parlour, went towards Mrs. Harlowe—­Don’t—­dear Sister, said he!—­Then towards my cousin Harlowe—­ Don’t—­dear Brother!—­Don’t thus give way—­And, without being able to say another word, went to a corner of the parlour, and, wanting himself the comfort he would fain have given, sunk into a chair, and audibly sobbed.

Miss Arabella followed her uncle Antony, as he walked in before me, and seemed as if she would have spoken to the pierced mother some words of comfort.  But she was unable to utter them, and got behind her mother’s chair; and, inclining her face over it, on the unhappy lady’s shoulder, seemed to claim the consolation that indulgent parent used, but then was unable, to afford her.

Young Mr. Harlowe, with all his vehemence of spirit, was now subdued.  His self-reproaching conscience, no doubt, was the cause of it.

And what, Sir, must their thoughts be, which, at that moment, in a manner, deprived them of all motion, and turned their speech into sighs and groans!—­How to be pitied, how greatly to be pitied! all of them!  But how much to be cursed that abhorred Lovelace, who, as it seems, by arts uncommon, and a villany without example, has been the sole author of a woe so complicated and extensive!—­God judge me, as—­But I stop—­ the man (the man can I say?) is your friend!—­He already suffers, you tell me, in his intellect.—­Restore him, Heaven, to that—­If I find the matter come out, as I apprehend it will—­indeed her own hint of his usage of her, as in her will, is enough—­nor think, my beloved cousin, thou darling of my heart! that thy gentle spirit, breathing charity and forgiveness to the vilest of men, shall avail him!—­But once more I stop —­forgive me, Sir!—­Who could behold such a scene, who could recollect it in order to describe it, (as minutely as you wished me to relate how this unhappy family were affected on this sad occasion,) every one of the mourners nearly related to himself, and not to be exasperated against the author of all?

As I was the only person (grieved as I was myself) from whom any of them, at that instant, could derive comfort; Let us not, said I, my dear Cousin, approaching the inconsolable mother, give way to a grief, which, however just, can now avail us nothing.  We hurt ourselves, and cannot recall the dear creature for whom we mourn.  Nor would you wish it, if you know with what assurance of eternal happiness she left the world—­She is happy, Madam!—­depend upon it, she is happy!  And comfort yourselves with that assurance!

O Cousin, Cousin! cried the unhappy mother, withdrawing her hand from that of her sister Hervey, and pressing mine with it, you know not what a child I have lost!—­Then in a low voice, and how lost!—­That it is that makes the loss insupportable.