You may let that Greville know, if you please, that there is no room for his If’s, nor, of consequence, any for his menaces.  You may own, that I shall soon be in Northamptonshire.  This may prevent his and Fenwick’s threatened journey to town.

But, Lucy, though my heart has been ever dutifully, as I may say, open to the venerable domestic circle; though it would not have been an honest heart, could it, circumstanced as I was, have concealed itself from Lady D——­; and must have been an impenetrable one indeed, if it could have been disguised to the two sisters here—­yet, I beseech you, my dear, almost on my knees I beseech you, let not the audacious, the insulting Greville, have ground given him to suspect a weakness in your Harriet, which indelicate minds know not how to judge of delicately.  For sex-sake, for example-sake, Lucy, let it not be known, to any but the partial, friendly few, that our grand-mamma Shirley’s child, and aunt Selby’s niece, has been a volunteer in her affections.  How many still more forward girls would plead Mrs. Shirley’s approbation of the hasty affection, without considering the circumstances, and the object!  So the next girl that run away to a dancing-master, or an ensign, would reckon herself one of Harriet’s school.

Poor Mr. Orme!  I am sorry he is not well.  It is cruel in you, Lucy, at this time, to say, (so undoubtingly,) that his illness is owing to his love of me.  You knew that such a suggestion would pain me.  Heaven restore Mr. Orme!

But I am vexed, as it cannot be to purpose, that Sir Charles Grandison and I have been named together, and talked of, in your neighbourhood!—­He will be gone abroad.  I shall return to Northamptonshire:  and shall look so silly!  So like a refused girl!

’Every body gives me to him, you say’—­So much the worse.  I wonder what business this every body has to trouble itself about me.

One consolation, however, I shall have in my return; and that is, in my Nancy’s recovered health; which was so precarious when I set out for London.

But I shall have nothing to entertain you with when I am with you:  Sir Charles Grandison, Lord and Lady L——­, Lady G——­, (as now in three or four days she will be), my dear Miss Jervois, Dr. Bartlett, will be all my subject.  And have I not exhausted that by pen and ink?  O no!  The doctor promises to correspond with me; and he makes no doubt but Sir Charles will correspond with him, as usual.

What can the unusually tender friendship be called which he professed for me, and, as I may say, claimed in return from me?  I know that he has no notion of the love called Platonic.  Nor have I:  I think it, in general, a dangerous allowance; and, with regard to our sex, a very unequal one; since, while the man has nothing to fear, the woman has every thing, from the privileges that may be claimed, in an acknowledged confidence, especially in presence.  Miss Grandison thus interprets what he said, and strengthens her opinion by some of Dr. Bartlett’s late intimations, that he really loves me; but not being at liberty to avow his love, he knew not what to say; and so went as near to a declaration as was possible to do in his circumstances.