In vain did Lady L——­ plead to her Lady Clementina’s deplorable situation; the reluctance of his own relations to part with him; and the magnanimity of his self-denial in a hundred instances, on the bare possibility of being an instrument to restore her:  she could not bear to hear her speak highly of the unhappy lady.  She charged Clementina with the pride of her family, to which she attributed their deserved calamity; [Deserved!  Cruel lady!  How could her pitiless heart allow her lips to utter such a word!] and imputed meanness to the noblest of human minds, for yielding to the entreaties of a family, some of the principals of which, she said, had treated him with an arrogance that a man of his spirit ought not to bear.

Lady Maffei came in.  She seems dependent upon her niece.  She is her aunt by marriage only:  and Lady L——­ speaks very favourably of her from the advice she gave, and her remonstrances to her kinswoman.  Lady Maffei besought her to compose herself, and return to the company.

She could not bear, she said, to return to the company, the slighted, the contemned object, she must appear to be to every one in it.  I am an intruder, said she, haughtily; a beggar, with a fortune that would purchase a sovereignty in some countries.  Make my excuses to your sister, to the rest of the company—­and to that fine young lady—­whose eyes, by their officious withdrawing from his, and by the consciousness that glowed in her face whenever he addressed her, betrayed, at least to a jealous eye, more than she would wish to have seen—­But tell her, that all lovely and blooming as she is, she must have no hope, while Clementina lives.

I hope, Lucy, it is only to a jealous eye that my heart is so discoverable!—­I thank her for her caution.  But I can say what she cannot; that from my heart, cost me what it may, I do subscribe to a preference in favour of a lady, who has acted, in the most arduous trials, in a greater manner than I fear either Olivia or I could have acted, in the same circumstances.  We see that her reason, but not her piety, deserted her in the noble struggle between her love and her religion.  In the most affecting absences of her reason, the soul of the man she loved was the object of her passion.  However hard it is to prefer another to one’s self, in such a case as this; yet if my judgment is convinced, my acknowledgment shall follow it.  Heaven will enable me to be reconciled to the event, because I pursue the dictates of that judgment, against the biases of my more partial heart.  Let that Heaven, which only can, restore Clementina, and dispose as it pleases of Olivia and Harriet.  We cannot either of us, I humbly hope, be so unhappy as the lady has been whom I rank among the first of women; and whose whole family deserves almost equal compassion.

Lady Olivia asked Lady L——­, if her brother had not a very tender regard for me?  He had, Lady L——­ answered; and told her, that he had rescued me from a very great distress; and that mine was the most grateful of human hearts.