Instead of eight days mortification we might have suffer’d twenty, had not her Ladyship insisted on an absolute promise of returning at that time.—­Farewel till then.

Yours,

DARCEY.

LETTER XIII.

Miss WARLEY to Lady MARY SUTTON.

From the Crown, at ——­.

Here am I, ever-honour’d lady, forty miles on the road to that beloved spot, where, for nineteen years, my tranquility was uninterrupted.—­Will a serene sky always hang over me?—­It will be presumption to suppose it,—­when thousands, perhaps, endowed with virtues the most god-like, have nothing on which they can look back but dark clouds,—­nothing to which they can look forward but gathering storms.—­Am I a bark only fit to sail in fair weather?—­Shall I not prepare to meet the waves of disappointment?

How does my heart bear,—­how throb,—­to give up follies which dare not hide themselves where a passage is made by generosity, by affection unbounded.—­Yes, my dear Lady, this is the only moment I do not regret being absent from you;—­for could my tongue relate what my pen trembles to discover?—­No!

Behold me at your Ladyship’s feet!—­behold me a supplicant suing for my returning peace!—­You only, can restore it.—­Command that I give up my preference for Lord Darcey, and the intruder is banished from my heart:—­then shall I no more labour to deceive myself:—­then shall I no more blindly exchange certain peace for doubtful happiness,—­a quiet for a restless mind.—­Humility has not fled me;—­my heart has not fallen a sacrifice to title, pomp, or splendor.—­Yet, has it not foolishly, unasked, given itself up?—­Ah! my Lady, not entirely unask’d neither; or, why, from the first moment, have I seen him shew such tender, such respectful assiduities?—­why so ardently solicit to attend me into Oxfordshire?—­why ask, if I refused my hand in the same peremptory manner, what would become of the man who without it was lost to the whole world?—­But am I not too vain?—­Why should this man be Lord Darcey?—­Rather one rising to his imagination, who he might possibly suppose was entrapped by my girlish years.—­A few, a very few weeks, and I am gone from him forever.—­If your Ladyship’s goodness can pardon the confession I have made, no errors will I again commit of the kind which now lies blushing before you.

Next to your Ladyship Mr. Jenkings is the best friend I have on earth.—­He never has suspected, or now quite forgets his suspicions.—­Not all my entreaties could prevent him from taking this long journey with me.—­His age, his connections, his business, every thing is made subservient to my convenience—­Whilst I write he is below, and has just sent up to know if I will permit a gentleman of his acquaintance, whom he has met accidentally at this inn, to dine with us.—­Why does he use this ceremony?—­I can have no objection to any friend of his.—­Dinner is served up.—­I shall write again at our last stage this evening.