myself, I would let his footman see me, that he might know how I really was; since he was almost distracted for fear of my being ill after so great a shock.  He also begged me to remember, “That there was one left still, who loved me as tenderly as my mother could do, and whose whole happiness in this world depended upon my life.”  My father told me, tho’ my mother was to be buried that night, “I must write a line to him, in order to ease the poor soul as much as I could; and let him know that he was as welcome to my father’s house, whenever he would please to come, as he was before.”  On this I wrote to him, and shewed the letter to my father.  The footman set out with it for London the same night, or very early the next morning.  Mr. Cranstoun not coming down so soon as was expected, my father one day, being alone with me, seemed to express himself as if he thought it wrong; upon which I wrote a very pressing letter to him, to come immediately to Henley.  To this he in a letter replied, that he was not able to go out at that time for debt, and was fearful if he should come, the Bailiffs might follow him; his fortune being seized in Scotland, for the maintenance of Miss Murray and her child.  The debt that occasioned this perplexity, he said, was near fifteen guineas.  I having borrowed forty pounds of Mrs. Mounteney, to pay off part of my mother’s debts, sent him up fifteen guineas out of this sum; on which he came down to Henley, and staid some weeks with my father, who received him with great marks of affection and esteem.

During this interval, he acquainted me with the great skill of the famous Mrs. Morgan, who had described me and my father, tho’ she had never seen us, in the most perfect and surprising manner possible.  He further acquainted me, that she had given him some powders to take, which she called Love-powders.  Some time after this conversation, my father seemed much out of humour, and said several unkind things, both to Mr. Cranstoun and me.  This induced Mr. Cranstoun, when alone with me not long after, to say, “I wish I could give your father some of the love-powders.”  “For what?” said I.  “Because,” replied he, “they would make him love me.”  “Are you weak enough,” said I, “to think that there is such a power in any powders?” “Yes, I really do,” replied he, “for I took them myself, and forgave a friend soon after; tho’ I never intended to have spoke to him again.”  This subject dropped for some days, and no more said of it:  but on my father’s being very much out of humour one night, Mr. Cranstoun said, “If I had any of these powders, I would put them into something that Mr. Blandy should drink.”  To which I answered, “I am glad you have not, for I have no faith in such things.”  “But I have,” replied he.  Just before he returned to London, he received a dunning letter.  This was on a Sunday, when my father was at church.  I perceiving him to look dull, begged to know the reason.  He said he must leave me the next day.