III.

When charms of mind and person meet,
How rich our raptures rise!
The fair that renders earth so sweet,
Prepares me for the skies!

How did our friends look upon one another as the excellent man proceeded!-I was astonished. It was happy I sat between my aunt and Lucy! They each took one of my hands. Tears of joy ran down my cheeks. Every one's eyes congratulated me. Every tongue, but mine, encored him. I was speechless. Again he ob liged us. I thought at the time I had a foretaste of the joys of heaven!-How sweet is the incense of praise from a husband; that husband a good man; my surrounding friends enjoying it! How will you, madam, rejoice in such an instance of a love so pure and so grateful!Long, long may it be, for the sake of his Harriet, his and her friends, for the world's sake, before his native skies reclaim him!

He approached me with tender modesty: as if abashed at the applause he met with. But seeing me affected, he was concerned. I withdrew with my aunt and Lucy. He followed me. I then threw myself into his arms; and, had speech been lent me, would have offered him the fervent vows of a heart overflowing with love and gratitude.

LETTER CCLXIV.

LADY GRANDISON..

[In continuation.]

THE music-parlour [I can hardly mention it without breaking into raptures] is adorned with a variety of fine carvings, on subjects that do honour to poetry and music. Be it Lucy's task to describe them. Let me mention other instances of his tender goodness to one of the happiest creatures on earth.

You know, madam, Sir Charles, when in Northamptonshire, offered me my choice of servants of both sexes; and when I told him that I chose not to take with me any one of either but my Sally, he said, that when I came to Grandison-Hall, where they would be all together, I should choose which of the men-servants I would more particularly call my own. I have not, my dearest life, said he, run into the taste of our modern gentry, for foreign servants, any more than for foreign equipages. I am well served; yet all mine are of our own country.

And then he gave me the names and an account of the qualities of each.

Frederick I had seen at Selby-House, an observant, sensible-looking young man I chose him. He called him in: (my Aunt Selby pre

sent:) All my servants, Frederick, said he, are as much your lady's as mine: but you will devote yourself more particularly to her commands. I mean not, however, any distinction in your favour, where you all equally merit distinction. The power, madam, of change or dismission through the house, is entirely yours.

To-morrow I am to go over all the bridal ostentation again at the parish-church. On Monday Lady Mansfield and her family are to be here-Your guests, my dear, said Sir Charles to me, I hope, for a week, at least. This was the first notice he gave of it to Lord and Lady W- What joy and gratitude appeared in her countenance upon it!

Tuesday, by general approbation, (Sir Charles submitting the choice of the day to his company,) we are to have the neighbouring gentry here to dinner, and for the rest of the day. Sir Charles has been long wished by them all to reside among them. He breaks through the usual forms, and chose this way, at once, to receive the visits of all his neighbours, and in both our names gave the invitation. He shewed us a list of the persons invited. It is a very large one. My dearest love, said he, we shall be half familiarized to them, they to us, even to-morrow, by the freedom of this invitation for the Tuesday following.

Mrs Curzon came to me for directions about the bed-chambers. I took that opportunity to tell her, that I should add to the number of female servants only my Sally, of whose discretion I had no doubt. You must introduce to me, said I, at a proper time, the female servants. If you, Mrs Curzon, approve of them, I shall make no changes. I am, myself, the happiest of women: every one who deserves it shall find her happiness in mine.

You will rejoice all their hearts, madam, by this early declaration of your goodness to them. I can truly say, that the best of masters has not the worst of servants: but Dr Bartlett would make bad servants good.

I shall want no other proof, said I, of their goodness, than their love and respect to Dr Bartlett.

In company of my aunt, Lady W, Lucy, Miss Jervois, attended by Mrs Curzon, we went to choose our rooms; and those for our expected guests of Monday. We soon fixed on them. My aunt, with her usual goodness, and Lady W- with that condescension that is natural to her, took great notice of Mrs Curzon, who seemed delighted with us all; and said, that she should be the happier in the performance of her duty, as she had been informed we were managing ladies. It was a pleasure, she said, to receive commands from persons who knew when things were properly done. You, my dearest grandmamma, from my earliest youth, have told me, that to be respected, even by servants, it is necessary to be able to direct them, and not

be thought ignorant of those matters that it be comes a mistress of a family to be acquainted with. They shall not find me pragmatical, however, in the little knowledge I have in family matters.

Will nothing happen, my dear grandmamma -But no more of this kind-Shall I, by my diffidences, lessen the enjoyments of which I am in full possession? My joy may not be sufficient to banish fear; but I hope it will be a prudent one, which will serve to increase my thankfulness to Heaven, and my gratitude to the man so justly dear to me.

But do you, my grandmamma, whenever you pray for the continuance of your Harriet's happiness, pray also for that of Lady Clementina: that only can be wanting, in my present situation, to complete the felicity of

Your ever grateful, ever dutiful,
HARRIET GRANDISON.

LETTER CCLXV.

LADY GRANDISON.

[In continuation.]

Sunday Noon. WHAT a crowded church-yard and church had I to pass through to the handsome seat, which belongs to the excellent patron of it!How much exalted was I to hear his whispered praises! How did my Northamptonshire friends rejoice in the respectful approbation paid to the happy creature, to whom they are more immediately related! I am always a little mortified by praises of my figure. What a transitory thing is outward form!-May I make to myself a more solid and permanent foundation for that respect, which is generally more pleasing to a female heart than it ought to be!

Sir Charles was not unhappy in his invitation for next Tuesday. I took off, I imagine, some particular addresses to him. Yet several gentlemen at his coach side acknowledged the favour done them in it.

My uncle, who, you know, madam, loves everything that promotes good neighbourhood, greatly delighted with the thoughts of the day. How proud is he of his Harriet! How much more proud of his relation to the best of

men!

I have looked upon what Lucy has written: I see there will be but little room for me to say anything. She is delighted with her task. It employs all her faculties, displays her fine taste in architecture, painting, needle-works, shellworks. She will give you a description of several charming performances in the two latter arts, of the late Lady Grandison!-How does

the character of that admirable lady rise upon us! With what emulation does it fire me! On twenty accounts, it was a very bold thing, my grandmamma, for your Harriet to aspire to be Lady Grandison!-Yet how does Sir Charles's goodness, his kind acceptance of all my humble endeavours, encourage me !-O madam! he said truth, when in courtship he told me, that I parted with power to have it returned me with augmentation. I don't know how it is, but his freedom of behaviour to me is increased, yet his respectfulness is not diminished. And, tender as he was before to me, his tenderness is still greater than it was; yet so much unaffected dignity in it, that my reverence for him is augmented, but without any abatement of my love. Then his cheerfulness, his more than cheerfulness, his vivacity, shews that he is at heart pleased with his Harriet !-Happy Harriet!-Yet I cannot forbear now and then, when my joy and my gratitude are at the highest, a sigh to the merits of Lady Clementina!-What I am now, should she have been, think I often !-The general admiration paid me as the wife of Sir Charles Grandison, should have been paid to her!-Lady L, Lady G, should have been her sisters!-She should have been the mistress of this house, and co-guardian of Emily, the successor of the late excellent Lady Grandison!-Hapless Clementina!-What a strange thing, that adherence to religion in two persons so pious, so good, each in their way, should sunder, for ever sunder, persons whose minds were so closely united!

Sir Charles, by Lucy, invites me, till dinner is ready, to walk with them, at her request, in the gallery. Lucy wants, in describing that gallery, to give you, my dearest grandmamma, (in whom every other of my friends is included,) a brief history of the ancestors of Sir Charles, whose pictures adorn it. I come! Lord of my heart! I attend you!

How, madam, would you have been delighted, could you have sat in this truly noble gallery, and seen the dear man, one arm round my waist, pointing sometimes with the other, sometimes putting that other arm round my Lucy's, and giving short histories of the persons whose pictures we saw !

Some of the pictures are really fine. One of Sir Charles, which is drawn when he was about sixteen, is on horseback. The horse, a managed, curvetting, proud beast.-His seat, spirit, courage, admirably expressed: He must have been, as his sisters say he was, the loveliest, and the most undaunted, yet most modest-looking of youths. He passed his own picture so slightly, that I had not time to take in half the beauties of it. You will not doubt, madam, but I shall be often in this gallery, were only this one picture there..

What pleasure had I in hearing the history of this ancient family, from this unbroken series of the pictures of it, for so many generations past! And will mine, one day, thought I, be allowed a place among them, near to that of the most amiable of them all, both as to mind and figure? How my heart exulted! What were my meditations, as I traced the imagined footsteps of dear Lady Grandison, her picture and Sir Thomas's in my eye! as finely executed as those in the best bed-chamber. May I, thought I, with a happier lot, be but half as deserving! But, madam, did not Lady Grandison shine the more for the hardships she passed through ?-And is it necessary for virtue to be called forth by trials, in order to be justified by its fortitude under them? What trials can I be called to with Sir Charles Grandison? But may I not take my place on the footstep of her throne, yet make no contemptible figure in the family of her beloved son? I will humbly endeavour to deserve my good fortune, and leave the rest to Providence.

There are in different apartments of this seat, besides two in the house in town, no less than six pictures of Sir Thomas; but then two of them were brought from his seat in Essex. Sir Thomas was fond of his person: they are drawn in different attitudes. He appears to be, as I have always heard he was, a fine figure of a man. But neither Lucy nor I, though we made not the compliment to Sir Charles, you may suppose, (who always speaks with reverence and unaffected love of his father,) thought him eomparable in figure, dignity, intelligence, to his

son.

We were called to dinner before we had gone half way through the gallery.

We had a crowded church again in the after

noon.

Sunday Night. This excellent Dr Bartlett! And this excellent Sir Charles Grandison! I may say. Sir Charles having inquired of the Doctor, when alone with him, after the rules observed by him before we came down, the Doctor told him, that he had every morning and night the few servants attending him in his antichamber to prayers, which he had selected out of the church service. Sir Charles desired him by all means to continue so laudable a custom; for he was sure master and servants would both find their account in it.

Sir Charles sent for Saunders and Mrs Curzon. He applauded to them the Doctor's goodness, and desired they would signify, the one to the men-servants, the other to the women, that he should take it well of them, if they cheerfully attended the Doctor; promising to give them opportunity, as often as was possible.

Half an hour after ten, Doctor, I believe, is a good time in the evening?

That, sir, is about my time; and eight in the morning, as an hour the least likely to interfere with their business. Whenever it does, they are in their duty, and I do not expect them.

About a quarter after ten, the Doctor slipped away. Soon after, Sir Charles withdrew, unperceived by any of us. The Doctor and his little church were assembled. Sir Charles joined them, and afterwards returned to company, with that cheerfulness that always beams in his aspect. The Doctor followed him, with a countenance as serene. I took the Doctor aside, though in the same apartment, supposing the matter. Sir Charles joined us-O sir, said I, why was I not whispered to withdraw with you? Think you that your Harriet

The company, my dearest love, interrupted he, was not now to be broken up. When we are settled, we can make a custom for ourselves, that will be allowed for by everybody, when it is seen we persevere, and are, in every other respect, uniform. Joshua's resolution, Doctor, was an excellent one.* The chapel, now our congregation is large, will be the properest place; and there, perhaps, the friends we may happen to have with us, will sometimes join us.

Monday Morning.] Sir Charles has just now presented to me, in Dr Bartlett's presence, Mr Daniel Bartlett, the Doctor's nephew, and his only care in this world, a young gentleman of about eighteen, well educated, and a fine accomptant; a master of his pen, and particularly of the art of short-hand writing. The Doctor insisted on the specification of a salary, which he named himself to be forty pounds a-year, and to be within the house, that he might always be at hand. He could not trust, he said, to his patron's assurance, that his bountiful spirit would allow him to have a regard, in the reward, only to the merit of the service.

Monday Noon. Lady Mansfield, Miss Mansfield, and the three brothers, are arrived. What excellent women, what agreeable young gentlemen, what grateful hearts, what joy to Lady W- -on their arrival! what pleasure to Lord W- who, on every occasion, shews his delight in his nephew!-All these things, with their compliments to your happy Harriet, let Lucy tell. I have not time.

WHAT, my dear grandmamma, shall we do with Lord and Lady W! Such a rich service of gilt plate! Just arrived! A present to me!-It is a noble present!—And so gracefully presented! And I so gracefully permitted to ac

cept of it, by my best, my tenderest friend !— Let Lucy describe this too.

Tuesday Morning. A vast company we shall have. Gentlemen and their ladies are invited: your Harriet is to be dressed; she is already dressed. How kindly am I complimented, by every one of my friends!-Let Lucy, let my aunt, (she promises to assist Lucy,) relate all that shall pass, describe the persons, and give the characters of our visitors; our managements, our entertainments, the ball that is to conclude the day and night. I shall not be able, I suppose, to write a line.

Wednesday Noon.] Our company left us not till six this morning. My uncle was transported with the day, with the night.

I will only say that all was happy; and decency, good order, mirth, and jollity, went through the whole space. Sir Charles was everywhere, and with everybody. O how he charmed them all! Sir William Turner said once, behind his back, Of what transports did my late friend Sir Thomas, who doted upon his son, deprive himself, by keeping him so long abroad! I could not but think of what my dear Lady G once wrote, that women are not so soon tired as men with these diversions, with dancing, particularly. By three, all but Sir Charles and my uncle seemed quite fatigued, but recovered themselves. My Emily delighted everybody. She was the whole night what I wished her to be.-Dear madam, be not uneasy. We shall be very happy in each other.

O that you were with us, my dearest grandmamma! But you, from your cheerful piety, and joyful expectation of happiness supreme, are already, though on earth, in heaven!-Yet it is my wish, my aunt's, my uncle's, Lucy's, twenty times a-day, that you were present, and saw him, the domestic man, the cheerful friend, the kind master, the enlivening companion, the polite neighbour, the tender husband! Let nobody who sees Sir Charles Grandison at home, say, that the private station is not that of true happiness.

How charmingly respectful is he to my uncle, aunt, and good Mr Deane! To Lucy, he is an affectionate brother. Emily, dear girl, how she enjoys his tenderness to her!

My uncle is writing to you, madam, a letter. He says, it will be as long as his arm. My aunt will dispatch this day a very long one. Theirs will supply my defects. Lucy is not quite ready with her first letter. If there were not so much of your Harriet in it, I would highly praise what she has hitherto written.

Thursday Morning. I leave to my uncle the account of the gentlemen's diversions in the gardens and fields. They are all extremely happy. But Lord G― already pines after his

Charlotte. He will not be prevailed upon to stay out his week, I doubt; sweet-tempered man! as I see him in a thousand little amiable instances. If Lady G did not love him, I would not love her. Lord W is afraid of a gouty attack. He is never quite free. He and his admirable lady will leave us to-morrow.

I think, my dear Lady G, with you, that discretion and gratitude are the corner-stones of the matrimonial fabric. Lady Whad no prepossessions in any other man's favour. My ford loves her. What must be that woman's heart, that gratitude and love cannot engage! But she loves my lord. Surely she does. Is not real and unaffected tenderness for the infirmities of another, the very essence of love? What is wanting where there is that? My Sir Charles is delighted with Lady W's goodness to his uncle. He tells her often, how much he reveres her for it.

In our retired hours, we have sometimes the excellent lady abroad for our subject. I always begin it. He never declines it. He speaks of her with such manly tenderness! He thanks me, at such times, for allowing him, as he calls it, to love her. He regrets very much the precipitating of her, yet pities her parents and brothers. How warmly does he speak of his Jeronymo! He has a sigh for Olivia. But of whom, except Lady Sforza and her Laurana, does he not speak kindly ?-And them he pities. Never, never, was there a more expanded heart!

Ан, madam, a cloud has just brushed by us! Its skirts have affected us with sadness, and carried us from our sunshine prospects home; that is to say, to thoughts of the general destiny!-Poor Sir Harry Beauchamp is no more! A letter from his Beauchamp! Sir Charles shewed it to me, for the honour of the writer, now Sir Edward. We admired this excellent young man together, over his letter. What fine things did Sir Charles say on this occasion, both by way of self consolation, and on the inevitable destiny! But he dwelt not on the subject. He has written to Lady Beauchamp, and to the young baronet. How charmingly consolatory!- What admirable-But Sir Charles, madam, is a CHRISTIAN!

THIS event has not at all influenced his temper. He is the same cheerful man to his company, to his Harriet, to everybody. I am afraid it will be the cause of his first absence from me: How shall I part with him, though it were but for two days?

Friday Noon. Lady Mansfield and her sons, Lord G, and Lord and Lady W—, have

left us. Miss Mansfield is allowed to stay with me some time longer. Emily is very fond of her. No wonder; she is a good young wo

man.

We are busied in returning the visits of our neighbours, which Sir Charles promised to do, as if they were individually made to us. We have a very agreeable neighbourhood. But I want these visitings to be over. Sir Charles, and his relations and mine, are the world to me. The obligations of ceremony, though unavoidable, are drawbacks upon the true domestic felicity. One happiness, however, results from the hurry and bustle they put us in: Emily's mind seems to be engaged: "When we are not quite happy in our own thoughts, it is a relief to carry them out of ourselves.

SIR CHARLES and I have just now had a short conversation about this dear girl. We both joined in praising her; and then I said, I thought, that some time hence Mr Beauchamp and she would make a very happy pair.

I have, said he, a love for both. But as the one is my own very particular friend, and as the other is my ward, I would rather he found for himself, and she for herself, another lover, and that for obvious reasons.

But suppose, sir, they should like each the other?

So as they made it not a compliment to me, but gave me reason to believe, that they would have preferred each the other to every one else, were they strangers to me, I would not stand in the way. But the man who hopes for my consent for Emily, must give me reason to think, that he would have preferred her to any other woman, though she had a much less fortune

than she is mistress of.

I am much mistaken, sir, if that may not be the case of your friend.

Tell me, my nobly-frank, and ever-amiable Harriet, what you know of this subject. Has Beauchamp any thoughts of Emily?

Ah, sir! thought I, I dare not tell you all my thoughts; but what I do tell you, shall be truth.

I really, sir, don't imagine Emily has a thought of your Beauchamp.

Nor of any other person? Has she? Lady G, Lady L, and myself, are of opinion, that Beauchamp loves Emily.

I am glad, my dear, if anything were to come of it, that the man loved first.

I was conscious. A tear unawares dropped from my eye-He saw it. He folded his arms about me, and kissed it from my cheek. Why, my love! my dearest love! why this? and seemed surprised.

I must tell you, sir, that you may not be surprised. I fear, I fear

What fears my Harriet? That the happiest of women cannot say that her dear man loved her first!

He folded me in his kind arms. How sweetly engaging! said he; I will presume to hope, that my Harriet, by the happiest of all women, means herself—You say not no! I will not insult your goodness so much as to ask you to say yes. But this I say, that the happiest of all men loved his Harriet before she could love him; and but for the honour he owed to another admirable woman, though then he had no hopes of ever calling her his, would have convinced her of it, by a very early declaration. Let me add, that the moment I saw you first, (distressed and terrified as you were, too much to think of favour to any man,) I loved you; and you know not the struggle it cost me (my destiny with our dear Clementina so uncertain) to conceal my love-Cost me, who ever was punctiliously studious to avoid engaging a young lady's affec tions, lest I should not be able to be just to her, and always thought what is called Platonic love an insidious pretension.

O sir! and I flung my fond arms about his neck, and called him the most just, the most generous of men.

He pressed me still to his heart; and when I raised my conscious face, though my eye could not bear his, Now, sir, said I, after this kind, this encouraging acknowledgment, I can consent, I think I can, that the lord of my heart shall see, as he has more than once wished to see, long before he declared himself, all that was in that forward, that aspiring heart.

Lucy had furnished me with the opportunity before. I instantly arose, and took out of a drawer a parcel of my letters, which I had sorted ready, on occasion, to oblige him; which, from what he had seen before, down to the dreadful masquerade affair, carried me to my setting out with his sisters to Colnebrook.

I think not to shew him farther, by my own consent, because of the recapitulation of his family story, which immediately follows, particularly including the affecting accounts of his mother's death; his father's unkindness to the two young ladies; Mrs Oldham's story; the sisters' conduct to her; which might have revived disagreeable subjects.

Be pleased, sir, said I, putting them into his hands, to judge me favourably. In these papers is my heart laid open.

Precious trust! said he, and put the papers to his lips; you will not find your generous confidence misplaced.

An opportunity offering to send away what I have written,-here, my dearest grandmamma, concludes

Your ever-dutiful

HARRIET GRANDISON.