“I asked if it were not owing to some alteration in his own temper?  If you might not be uneasy at our acquaintance, and at his frequent absence from you, and the like?  He answered, No; that you were above disguises, were of a noble and frank nature, and would have hinted it to him, if you had.  This, however, when I began to think seriously of the matter, gave me but little satisfaction; and I was more and more convinced, that my honour required it of me, to break off this intimacy.

“And although I permitted Mr. B. to go with me to Tunbridge, when I went to take a house there, yet I was uneasy, as he saw.  And, indeed, so was he, though he tarried a day or two longer than he designed, on account of a little excursion my sister and her lord, and he and I, made into Sussex, to see an estate I thought of purchasing; for he was so good as to look into my affairs, and has put them upon an admirable establishment.

“His uneasiness, I found, was upon your account, and he sent you a letter to excuse himself for not waiting on you on Saturday, and to say, he would dine with you on Monday.  And I remember when I said, ’Mr. B., you seem to be chagrined at something; you are more thoughtful than usual:  ’his answer was, ’Madam, you are right, Mrs. B. and I have had a little misunderstanding.  She is so solemn, and so melancholy of late, I fear it will be no difficult matter to put her out of her right mind:  and I love her so well, that then I should hardly keep my own.’

“‘Is there no reason, think you,’ said I, ’to imagine that your acquaintance with me gives her uneasiness?  You know, Mr. B., how that villain T.’ (a man,” said she, “whose insolent address I rejected with the contempt it deserved) ’has slandered us.  How know you, but he has found a way to your wife’s ear, as he has done to my uncle’s, and to all my friends’?  And if so, it is best for us both to discontinue a friendship, that may be attended with disagreeable consequences.’

“He said, he should find it out on his return.  ‘And will you,’ said I, ‘ingenuously acquaint me with the issue of your inquiries? for,’ added I, ’I never beheld a countenance, in so young a lady, that seemed to mean more than Mrs. B.’s, when I saw her in town; and notwithstanding her prudence I could see a reserve and thoughtfulness in it, that, if it was not natural to it, must indicate too much.’

“He wrote to me, in a very moving letter, the issue of your conference, and referred to some papers of your’s, that he would shew me, as soon as he could procure them, they being of your own hands; and let me know that T. was the accuser, as I had suspected.