Can there be a misfortune equal to that of loving Rivers without hope of a return?  Yet she has not only born this misfortune without complaint, but has been the confidante of his passion for another; he owned to her all his tenderness for me, and drew a picture of me, which, she told me, ought, had she listened to reason, to have destroyed even the shadow of hope:  but that love, ever ready to flatter and deceive, had betrayed her into the weakness of supposing it possible I might refuse him, and that gratitude might, in that case, touch his heart with tenderness for one who loved him with the most pure and disinterested affection; that her journey to Quebec had removed the veil love had placed between her and truth; that she was now convinced the faint hope she had encouraged was madness, and that our souls were formed for each other.

She owned she still loved him with the most lively affection; yet assured me, since she was not allowed to make the most amiable of mankind happy herself, she wished him to be so with the woman on earth she thought most worthy of him.

She added, that she had on first seeing me, though she thought me worthy his heart, felt an impulse of dislike which she was ashamed to own, even now that reason and reflexion had conquered so unworthy a sentiment; that Rivers’s complaisance had a little dissipated her chagrin, and enabled her to behave to me in the manner she did:  that she had, however, almost hated me at the ball in the country:  that the tenderness in Rivers’s eyes that day whenever they met mine, and his comparative inattention to her, had wounded her to the soul.

That this preference had, however, been salutary, though painful; since it had determined her to conquer a passion, which could only make her life wretched if it continued; that, as the first step to this conquest, she had resolved to see him no more:  that she would return to her house the moment she could cross the river with safety; and conjured me, for her sake, to persuade him to give up all thoughts of a settlement near her; that she could not answer for her own heart if she continued to see him; that she believed in love there was no safety but in flight.

That his absence had given her time to think coolly; and that she now saw so strongly the amiableness of my character, and was so convinced of my perfect tenderness for him, that she should hate herself were she capable of wishing to interrupt our happiness.

That she hoped I would pardon her retaining a tender remembrance of a man who, had he never seen me, might have returned her affection; that she thought so highly of my heart, as to believe I could not hate a woman who esteemed me, and who solicited my friendship, though a happy rival.

I was touched, even to tears, at her behaviour:  we embraced; and, if I know my own weak foolish heart, I love her.

She talks of leaving Quebec before Rivers’s return; she said, her coming was an imprudence which only love could excuse; and that she had no motive for her journey but the desire of seeing him, which was so lively as to hurry her into an indiscretion of which she was afraid the world took but too much notice.  What openness, what sincerity, what generosity, was there in all she said!