“Your goodness, Madam, makes it unnecessary to be more explicit:  to be unhappy, and not to have merited it, is a sufficient claim to your protection.

“You are above the low prejudices of common minds; you will pity the wretched victim of her own unsuspecting heart, you will abhor the memory of her savage undoer, you will approve my complying with her dying request, though in contradiction to the selfish maxims of the world:  you will, if in your power, endeavor to serve my little prattler.

“’Till I had explained my situation, I could not think of accepting the honor you allowed me to hope for, of enquiring after your health at Bellfield; if the step I have taken meets with your approbation, I shall be most happy to thank you and Colonel Rivers for your attention to one, whom you would before have been justified in supposing unworthy of it.

“I am, Madam, with the most perfect respect and gratitude,

    “Your obliged
      and obedient servant,
          F. Williams.”

Your own heart, my dear Fitzgerald, will tell you what were our reflections on reading the inclosed:  Emily, whose gentle heart feels for the weaknesses as well as misfortunes of others, will to-morrow fetch this heroic girl and her little ward, to spend a week at Bellfield; and we will then consider what is to be done for them.

You know Sir William Verville; go to him from me with the inclosed letter, he is a man of honor, and will, I am certain, provide for the poor babe, who, had not his father been a monster of unfeeling inhumanity, would have inherited the estate and title Sir William now enjoys.

Is not the midnight murderer, my dear friend, white as snow to this vile seducer? this betrayer of unsuspecting, trusting, innocence? what transport is it to me to reflect, that not one bosom ever heaved a sigh of remorse of which I was the cause!

I grieve for the poor victim of a tenderness, amiable in itself, though productive of such dreadful consequences when not under the guidance of reason.

It ought to be a double tie on the honor of men, that the woman who truely loves gives up her will without reserve to the object of her affection.

Virtuous less from reasoning and fixed principle, than from elegance, and a lovely delicacy of mind; naturally tender, even to excess; carried away by a romance of sentiment; the helpless sex are too easily seduced, by engaging their confidence, and piquing their generosity.

I cannot write; my heart is softened to a degree which makes me incapable of any thing.

Do not neglect one moment going to Sir William Verville.

    Adieu! 
      Your affectionate
          Ed. Rivers.

LETTER 208.

To Colonel Rivers.

Oct. 28.

The story you have told me has equally shocked and astonished me:  my sweet Bell has dropped a pitying tear on poor Sophia’s grave.