I, my good chevalier, may say any thing to you.  We are undetermined about every thing.  We know not what to propose, what to consent to.  Your journey, on the first motion, though but from some of us, the dear creature continuing ill; you in possession of a considerable estate, exercising yourself in doing good in your native country; [You must think we took all opportunities of inquiring after the man once so likely to be one of us;] the first fortune in Italy, Olivia, though she is not a Clementina, pursuing you in hopes of calling herself yours; (for to England we hear she went, and there you own she is;) What obligations have you laid upon us!—­What can we determine upon?  What can we wish?

Providence and you, madam, shall direct my steps.  I am in yours and your lord’s power.  The same uncertainty, from the same unhappy cause, leaves me not the thought, because not the power, of determination.  The recovery of Lady Clementina and her brother, without a view to my own interest, fills up, at present, all the wishes of my heart.

Let me ask, said the lady, (it is for my own private satisfaction,) Were such a happy event, as to Clementina, to take place, could you, would you, think yourself bound by your former offers?

When I made those offers, madam, the situation on your side was the same that it is now:  Lady Clementina was unhappy in her mind.  My fortune, it is true, is higher:  it is, indeed, as high as I wish it to be.  I then declared, that if you would give me your Clementina, without insisting on one hard, on one indispensable article, I would renounce her fortune, and trust to my father’s goodness to me for a provision.  Shall my accession to the estate of my ancestors alter me?—­No, madam:  I never yet made an offer, that I receded from, the circumstances continuing the same.  If, in the article of residence, the marquis, and you, and Clementina, would relax; I would acknowledge myself indebted to your goodness; but without conditioning for it.

I told you, said she, that I put this question only for my own private satisfaction:  and I told you truth.  I never will deceive or mislead you.  Whenever I speak to you, it shall be as if, even in your own concerns, I spoke to a third person; and I shall not doubt but you will have the generosity to advise, as such, though against yourself.

May I be enabled to act worthy of your good opinion!  I, madam, look upon myself as bound; you and yours are free.

What a pleasure is it, my dear Dr. Bartlett, to the proud heart of your friend, that I could say this!—­Had I sought, in pursuance of my own inclinations, to engage the affections of the admirable Miss Byron, as I might with honour have endeavoured to do, had not the woes of this noble family, and the unhappy state of mind of their Clementina, so deeply affected me; I might have involved myself, and that loveliest of women, in difficulties which would have made such a heart as mine still more unhappy than it is.