1 were it confidered that the notion of a double or You bid me afk my aunt-You bid me tell my uncle-Naughty Charlotte! I will afk, I will tell them nothing. Pray write me a letter next that I can read to them. I fkipt this paffage-Read that-'um-'um-'um-Then skipt again-Heyday! What's come to the girl? cried my uncle: Can Lady G. write what Harriet cannot read? [There was a rebuke for you, Charlotte !] For the love of God, let me read it :-He buftled, laughed, thook his fhoulders, rubbed his hands, at the imagination--Some pretty roguery, I warrant : Dearly do I love Lady G. If you love ine, Harriet, let me read; and once he fnatched one of the fheets. I boldly ftruggled with him for itFor fhame, Mr Selby, faid my aunt. My dear, faid my grandmother, if your uncle is fo impetuous, you must fhew him no more of your let ters. He He then gave it up-Confider, Charlotte, what a fine piece of work we should have had with my uncle, had he read it through! But, let me fee,- -What are the parts of this wicked letter, for which I can fincerely thank you; -O my dear, I cannot, cannot, without foiling my fingers, pick them out-Your intelligences, however, are among those which I hold for fa vours. Poor Emily! that is a fubject which delights, yet faddens me-We are laudably fond of diftinguishing merit. But your brother's is fo dazzling -Every woman is one's rival. But no, more of my Emily! Dear creature! the subject pains me -Yet I cannot quit it.-You af, if, after all, I think it right that she should live with me?—What can I fay? For her fake, perhaps, it will not: Yet how is her heart fet upon it! For my own fake, as there is no perfect happiness to be expected in this life, I could be content to bear a little pain, were that dear girl to be either benefited or pleafured by it. Indeed I love her at my heartAnd what is more-I love myfelf for fo fincerely loving her. In the picked part of your letter, what you write of your aunt Eleanor-But I have no patience with you, finner as you are against light, and better knowledge! and derider of the infirmities, not of old maids, but of old age!-Don't you hope to live long yourself? That worthy lady wears not spectacles, Charlotte, because the never was fo happy as to be married. Wicked Charlotte! to owe fuch obligation to the generofity of good Lord G. for taking pity of you in time Were you four or five-and-twenty when he honoured you with his hand at St George's church?] and yet to treat him as you do, in more places than one, in this very letter! VOL. VII. I But But I will tell you what I will do with this fame ftrange letter-I will tranfcribe all the good things in it. There are many which both delight and inftruct; and fome morning, before I drefs for the day, I will [Sad task, Charlotte! But it fhall be by way of penance for fome of my faults and follies!] tranfcribe the intolerable paffages; fo make two letters of it. One I will keep to thew my friends here, in order to increase, if it be poffible, their admiration of my Charlotte; the bad one I will present to you. I know I fhall tranfcribe it in a violent hurry-Not much matter whether it be legible or not-The hobbling it will cause in the reading will make it appear worse to you, than if you conld read it as glibly as you write. If half of it be illegible, enough will be left to make you bluth for the whole, and wonder what fort of a pen it was that somebody, unknown to you, put into your ftandifh. After all, fpare me not, my ever-dear, my evercharming friend: fpare only your-felf: Don't let Charlotte run away from both G.'s. You will then be always equally fure of my admiration and love. For dearly do I love you, with all your faults; fo dearly, that when I confider your faults by themfelves, I am ready to arraign my heart, and to think there is more of the roguery of my Charlotte in it than I will allow of. One punishment to you, I intend, my dear-In all my future letters, I will write as if I had never feen this your naughty one. Indeed I am in a kind of way, faulty or not, that I cannot get out of all at once; but as foon as I can, I will, that I may better justify my difpleasure at fome parts of your letter, by the obfervance I will pay to others. That is a fweet fentence of my Charlotte's: "Change your name, and increase your confequence. Reflect, my dear ; how naughty muft must you have been, that such a charming instance of goodness could not bribe to spare you. Your ever affectionate and grateful HARRIET BYRON. MR LETTER XI. Mifs BYRON. In Continuation. Selby-boufe, Tuesday Morning, Oct. 24. R Deane would not go back with us. He laid a strict charge upon me, at parting, not to be punctilious. I am not, my dear Lady G. Do you think I am? The men are their own enemies, if they wish us to be open-hearted and fincere, and are not fo themselves. Let them enable us to depend on their candour, as much as we may on that of Sir Charles Grandifon, and the women will be inexcufeable, who shall play either the prude or the coquet with them. You will fay, I am very cunning, perhaps, to form at the fame time a rule from, and an excufe for, my own conduct to this excellent man: But be that as it will, it is truth. We fent our duty laft night to Shirley-manor: and expect every moment the dear parent there with us. She is come. I will go down; and if I get her by myself, or only with my aunt and Lucy, I will tell her a thousand thousand agreeable things, which have paffed fince last I had her tender bleffing. We have had this Greville and this Fenwick here. I could very well have fpared them. Mifs Orme came hither alfo, uninvited, to breakfast; a I 2 favour favour fhe often does us. I knew not, at first, how to behave to Sir Charles before her: She looked fo jealous of him! fo cold! Under her bent brow the looked at him: Yes, and No, were all her anfwers, with an air so stiff!-But this referve lafted not above a quarter of an hour. Sir Charles addreffed himself to me with fo much refpect, to her, with fo polite a freedom, that the could not hold her thynefs. Her brow cleared up; her eyes looked larger, and more free: Her buttoned-up pretty mouth opened to a smile: She answered, the afked queftions; gave her required opinion on more topics than one, and was again all Mifs Orme. Every body took great notice of Sir Charles's fine addrefs to her, and were charmed with him; for we all efteem Mr Orme, and love his fifter. How pleafant it was to fee the funfhine break out in her amiable countenance, and the gloom vanishing by degrees! She took me out into the leffer parlour.-What a ftrange variable creature am I! faid the: How I hated this Sir Charles Grandifon, before I faw him! I was vexed to find him, at firft fight, anfwer what I had heard of him; for I was refolved to diflike him, though he had been an angel: But, ah, my poor brother!-I am afraid, that I myself fhall be ready to give up his intereft!-No wonder, my dear Mifs Byron, that nobody elfe would do, when you had seen this man!-But still let me bespeak your pity for my brother-Would to Heaven you had not gone to London !-What went you thither for? Sir Charles kindly enquired of her after Mr Orme's health; praised him for his character; wifhed his recovery; and to be allowed to cultivate the friend(hip of fo worthy a man: And all this with an air fo fincere!-But good men must love one another, SIR |