grown very tall and pretty. O my Emily!What a grievous thing is it to say, that I am told these things; and not to have been allowed to see you; and to behold your growth, and those improvements, which must rejoice my heart, and do, though I am so basely belied as I have been! Do not you, Emily, despise her that bore you. It is a dreadful thing, with such fortunes as your father left, that I must be made poor and dependent; and then be despised for being so.

But if you, my child, are taught to be, and will be one of those; what, though I have such happy prospects in my present marriage, will be my fate, but a bitter death, which your want of duty will hasten? For what mother can bear the contempts of her child? And, in that case, your great fortune will not set you above God's judgments. But better things are hoped of my Emily, by her indulgent, though heretofore unhappy, mother,

Saturday, March 18.

HELEN O'HARA.

My lord thought fit to open this letter: he is sorry that he did; because the poor girl is so low-spirited, that he does not choose to let her see it; but will leave it to her guardian to give it to her, or not, as he pleases.

Miss Grandison lifted up her hands and eyes as she read it. Such a wretch as this, she said, to remind Emily of God's judgments; and that line written as even as the rest! How was it possible, if her wicked heart could suggest such words, that her fingers could steadily write them? But, indeed, she verifies the words of the wise man; There is no wickedness like the wickedness of a woman.

We all long to see Sir Charles. Poor Emily, in particular, will be unhappy till he comes.

While we expect a favoured person, though rich in the company of the friends we are with, what a diminution does it give to enjoyments that would be complete were it not for that expectation! The mind is uneasy, not content with itself, and always looking out for the person

wanted.

Emily was told that her mother left a letter for her; but is advised not to be solicitous to see it till her guardian comes. My lord owned to her that he had opened it; and pleaded tenderness, as he justly might, in excuse of having taken that liberty. She thanked his lordship, and said, it was for such girls as she to be directed by such good and kind friends.

She has just now left me. I was writing, and wanted to close. I gave her a nod, with a smile, as agreed upon a little before. Thank you, thank you, dear madam, said she, for this freedom. She stopped at the door, and with it in her hand, in a whispering accent, bending forwards, Only tell me, that you love me as well as you did in the chariot.

Indeed, my dear, I do; and better, I think, if possible: because I have been putting part of our conversation upon paper, and so have fastened your merits on my memory.

God bless you, madam, I am gone. And away she tript.

But I will make her amends, before I go to rest; and confirm all that I said to her in the chariot; for most cordially I can.

I am, my dear Lucy, and will be,
Ever yours,

HARRIET BYRON.

LETTER LXXXIX.

MR DEANE TO MRS SELBY.

London, Friday Night, March 17. You wished me, my dear Mrs Selby, as I was obliged to go to London on my own affairs, to call at Colnebrook, and to give you my observations on the state of matters there; and whether there were any likelihood of the event we are all so desirous should be brought about; and particularly, if an opportunity offered, that I would at distance sound Sir Charles himself on the subject. I told you, that you need not be afraid of my regard to our dear child's delicacy; and that she herself should not have reason to mistrust me on this nice subject.

It seems his great engagements in town, and some he has had in Kent, have hindered him from giving Lord L- and his sisters much of his company, though your Harriet is there; which they all extremely regret.

is a very

I dined at Colnebrook. Lord Lworthy and agreeable man. Lady L― and Miss Grandison are charming women. Miss Jervois is a pretty young lady.-But more of her by and by.-The cousin Grandison you spoke of, is gone down to Grandison-Hall: whither Sir Charles himself thinks shortly of going-But this and other distant matters I refer to our Har riet's own account.

My visit to Sir Charles is most in my head, and I will mention that, and give place to other observations afterwards.

After dinner I pursued my journey to London. As my own business was likely to engage me for the whole time I had to stay in town, I alighted at his house in St James's Square; and was immediately, on sending my name, introduced to him.

Let me stop to say, he is indeed a very fine gentleman. Majesty and sweetness are mingled in every feature of his face; and the latter, rather than the former, predominates in his whole behaviour. Well may Harriet love him.

I told him, that I hoped, on my coming to town on particular affairs, he would excuse the intrusion of a man who was personally a stranger

to him; but who had long wished for an opportunity to thank him for the relief he had given to a young lady in whom I claimed an interest that was truly paternal. At the same time I congratulated him on the noble manner in which he had extricated himself, to the confusion of men, whom he had taught to find out, and to be ashamed, that they were savages.

He received my compliments as a man might be supposed to do, to whom praise is not a new thing; and made me very handsome ones, declaring himself acquainted with my character, with my connections with your family, and with one of the most excellent of young ladies. This naturally introduced the praises of our Harriet; in which he joined in so high and so just a strain, that I saw his heart was touched. I am sure it is: so set yours at rest. It must do. Everything is moving, and that not slowly, to the event so desirable. I led to the graces of her person: he to those of her mind: he allowed her to be, for both, one of the most perfect beauties he had ever seen. In short, Mrs Selby, I am convinced, that the important affair will ripen of itself. His sisters, Lord L, Dr Bartlett, all avowedly in our lovely girl's favour, and her merit so extraordinary; it must do. Don't you remember what the old song says?

When Phabus does his beams display, To tell men gravely, that 'tis day,

Is to suppose them blind.

All I want, methinks, is to have them oftener together. Idleness, I believe, is a great friend to love. I wish his affairs would let him be a little idle. They must be dispatched soon, be they what they will; for Lord L said, that when he is master of a subject, his execution is as swift as thought. Sir Charles hinted, that he shall soon be obliged to go to France. Seas are nothing to him. Dr Bartlett said, that he considers all nations as joined on the same continent; and doubted not, but if he had a call, he would undertake a journey to Constantinople or Pekin, with as little difficulty as some others would (he might have named me for one) to the Land'send. Indeed he appears to be just that kind of man. Yet he seems not to have any of that sort of fire in his constitution, that goes off with a bounce, and leaves nothing but vapour and smoke behind it.

You are in doubt about our girl's fortune. It is not a despicable one. He may, no question, have a woman with a much greater; and so may she a man. What say you to Lady D's proposal, rejected for his sake; at hap-hazard too, as the saying is? But let it once come to that question, and leave it to me to answer it.

You bid me remark how Harriet looks. She is as lovely as ever; but I think not quite so lively, and somewhat paler; but it is a clear and healthy, not a sickly paleness: and there is a

languor in her fine eyes, that I never saw in them before. She never was a pert girl; but she has more meekness and humility in her countenance, than, methinks, I would wish her to have; because it gives to Miss Grandison, who has fine spirits, some advantages in conversation over Harriet, that, if she had, methinks she would not take. But they perfectly understand one another.

But now for a word or two about Miss Jervois. I could not but take notice to our Miss Byron, of the greediness with which she eats and drinks the praises given her guardian; of the glow that overspreads her cheeks, and of a sigh that now and then seems to escape even her own observation, when he is spoken of; [so like a niece of mine, who drew herself in, and was afterwards unhappy;] and by these symptoms I conclude, that this young creature is certainly giving way to love. She has a very great fortune, is a pretty girl, and an improving beauty. She is tall and womanly. I thought her sixteen or seventeen; but, it seems, she is hardly fourteen. There is as much difference in girls, as in fruits, as to their maturing, as I may say. My mother, I remember, once said, of an early bloom in a niece of hers, that such were born to woe. I hope it won't be so with this; for she certainly is a good young creature, but has not had great opportunities of knowing either the world, or herself. Brought up in a confined manner in her father's house at Leghorn, till twelve or thirteen; what opportunities could she have? No mother's wings to be sheltered under; her mother's wickedness giving occasion the more to straiten her education, and at a time of life so young, and in so restraining a country as Italy, for girls and young maidens: and since brought over, put to board with a retired country gentlewoman-What can she know, poor thing? She has been but a little while with Miss Grandison, and that but as a guest: so that the world before her is all new to her: and, indeed, there seems to be in her pretty wonder, and honest declarations of her whole heart, a simplicity that sometimes borders upon childishness, though at other times a kind of womanly prudence. I am not afraid of her on our Harriet's account; and yet Harriet (lover-like, perhaps!) was alarmed at my hinting it to her; but I am on her own. I wish, as I said before, Sir Charles was more among them: he would soon discover whose love is fit to be discountenanced, and whose to be encouraged; and, by that means, give ease to twenty hearts. For I cannot believe that such a man as this would be guilty (I will call it) of reserve to such a young lady as ours, were he but to have the shadow of a thought that he has an interest in her heart.

My affairs are more untoward than I expected: but on my return to Peterborough I will call at Shirley-House and Selby-Manor-and then (as I hope to see Sir Charles again, either in London, or at Colnebrook,) I will talk to

You must then let your Anne go to bed, said I; else, as her time is not her own, I shall shorten my visit. I will assist you in any little services myself. I have dismissed Jenny.

God bless you, madam, said she; you consider everybody. Anne tells me, that the servants throughout the house adore you: and I am sure their principals do.-Anne, you may go to your rest.

Jenny, who attends me here, has more than once hinted to me, that Miss Jervois loves to sit up late, either reading, or being read to, by Anne; who, though she reads well, is not fond of the task.

Servants, said I, are as sensible as their masters and mistresses. They speak to their feelings. I question not but they love Miss Jervois as well as they do me. I should as soon choose to take my measures of the goodness of principals by their servants' love of them, as by any other rule. Don't you see, by the silent veneration and assiduities of the servants of Sir Charles Grandison, how much they adore their master?

I am very fond of being esteemed by servants, said she, from that very observation of my guardian's goodness, and his servants' worthiness, as well as from what my maid tells me, all of them say of you. But you and my guardian are so much alike in everything, that you seem to be born for one another.

And then she sighed, involuntarily; yet seemed not to endeavour to restrain or recal her sigh.

Why sighs my dear young friend? Why sighs my Emily?

That's good of you to call me your Emily. My guardian calls me his Emily. I am always proud when he calls me so-I don't know why I sigh: but I have lately got a trick of sighing, I think. Will it do me harm? Anne tells me

I felt myself blush.

I often catch myself sighing, my dear, said I. It is a trick, as you call it, which I would not have you learn.

But I have reason for sighing, madam; which you have not-Such a mother! A mother that I wanted to be good, not so much to me, as to herself: a mother so unhappy, that one must be glad to run away from her. My poor papa! so good as he was to everybody, and even to her, yet had his heart broken-O madam !— (flinging her arms about me, and hiding her face in my bosom,) have I not cause to sigh?

I wept on her neck; I could not help it: so dutifully sensible of her calamity! and for such a calamity, who could forbear?

Such a disgrace too! said she, raising her head. Poor woman!-Yet she has the worst of it. Do you think that that is not enough to make one sigh?

Amiable goodness! (kissing her cheek,) I shall love you too well.

You are too good to me: you must not be so good to me that, even that, will make me sigh. My guardian's goodness to me gives me pain; and I think verily, I sigh more since last I left Mrs Lane, and have seen more of his goodness, and how everybody admires, and owns obligation to him, than I did before.-To have a stranger, as one may say, and so very fine a gentleman, to be so good to one, and to have such an unhappy mother-who gives him so much trouble-how can one help sighing for both reasons?

Dear girl! said I, my heart overflowing with compassion for her, you and I are bound equally, by the tie of gratitude, to esteem him.

Ah, madam! you will one day be the happiest of all women-And so you deserve to be. What means my Emily?

Don't I see, don't I hear, what is designed to be brought about by Lord and Lady L— and Miss Grandison? And don't I hear from my Anne, what everybody expects and wishes for?

And does everybody expect and wish, my Emily

I stopped. She went on.-And don't I see that my guardian himself loves you? Do you think so, Emily?

O how he dwells upon your words, when you speak!

You fancy so, my dear.

You have not observed his eyes so much as I have done, when he is in your company. I have watched your eyes too; but have not seen that

you mind him quite so much as he does you. Indeed he loves you dearly.—And then she sighed again.

But why that sigh, my Emily? Were I so happy as you think, in the esteem of this good man, would you envy me, my dear?

Envy you!-I, such a simple girl as I, envy you! No, indeed. Why should I envy you? But tell me now, dear madam, tell me; don't you love my guardian?

Everybody does. You, my Emily, love him. And so I do but you love him, madam, with a hope that no one else will have reason to entertain-Dear now, place a little confidence in your Emily: my guardian shall never know it from me, by the least hint. I beg you will own it. You can't think how you will oblige me. Your confidence in me will give me importance with myself.

Will you, Emily, be as frank-hearted with rae, as you would have me be with you? Indeed I will.

I do, my dear, greatly esteem your guardian. Esteem! Is that the word? Is that the ladies' word for love? And is not the word love a pretty word for women? I mean no harm by it, I am sure.

And I am sure you cannot mean harm. I will be sincere with my Emily; but you must not let any one living know what I say to you of this nature. I would prefer your guardian, my dear, to a king, in all his glory.

And so, madam, would I, if I were you. I should be glad to be thought like you in everything.

Amiable innocence! But tell me, Miss Jervois, would you not have me esteem your guardian? You know he was my guardian too, and that at an exigence when I most wanted one.

Indeed I would. Would you have me wish such a good young lady as Miss Byron to be ungrateful? No, indeed-And again she sighed. Why then sighed my Emily? You said you would be frank-hearted.

So I will, madam. But I really can't tell why I sighed then. I wish my guardian to be the happiest man in the world: I wish you, madam, to be the happiest woman: and how can either be so, but in one another?-But I am grieved, I believe, that there seems to be something in the way of your mutual happiness.-I don't know whether that is all, neither-I don't know what it is-If I did, I would tell you-But I have such throbs sometimes at my heart, as make me fetch my breath hard-I don't know what it is-Such a weight here, as makes me sigh; and I have a pleasure, I think, because I have an ease in sighing-What can it be?

Go on, my dear: you are a pretty describer. Why now, if anybody, as Anne did last time my guardian came hither, were to run up stairs in a hurry; and to say, Miss, miss, miss, your

guardian is come! I should be in such a flutter! my heart would seem to be too big for my bosom! I should sit down as much out of breath as if I had run down a high hill.-And, for half an hour, maybe, so tremble, that I should not be able to see the dear guardian that perhaps I had wanted to see. And to hear him with a voice of gentleness, as if he pitied me for having so unhappy a mother, call me his Emily.-Don't you think he has a sweet voice? And your voice, too, madam, is also so sweetEverybody says, that even in your common speech your voice is melody.-Now Anne says O my agreeable little flatterer!

I don't flatter, madam. Don't call me a flatterer. I am a very sincere girl: indeed I am.

I dare say you are: but you raise my vanity, my dear. It is not your fault to tell me what people say of me; but it is mine to be proud of their commendations-But you were going to tell me what Anne says, on your being so much affected, when she tells you in a hurry, that your guardian is come.

Why Anne says, that all those are signs of love. Foolish creature!--And yet so they may; but not of such love as she means. Such a love as she as good as owns she had in her days of flutteration, as she whimsically calls them; which, as she explains it, were when she was two or three years older than I am. In the first place, I am very young, you know, madam; a mere girl and such a simple thing!-I never had a mother, nor sister neither; nor a companion of my own sex.-Mrs Lane's daughters, what were they?-They looked upon me as a child, as I was. In the next place, I do love my guardian, that's true; but with as much reverence, as if he were my father. I never had a thought that had not that deep, that profound reverence for him, as I remember I had for my father.

But you had not, my dear, any of those flutters, those throbs that you spoke of, on any returns of your father, after little absences?

Why, no; I can't say I had. Nor, though I always rejoiced when my guardian came to see me at Mrs Lane's, had I, as I remember, any such violent emotions as I have had of late. I don't know how it is-Can you tell me?

Do you not, Lucy, both love and pity this sweet girl?

My dear Emily!-These are symptoms, I doubt

Symptoms of what, madam ?-Pray tell me sincerely. I will not hide a thought of my heart from you.

If encouraged, my dear-
What then, madam?-

It would be love, I doubt-That sort of love that would make you uneasy

No; that cannot be, surely. Why, madam, at that rate, I should never dare to stand in your

presence. Upon my word, I wish no one in the world, but you, to be Lady Grandison. I have but one fear——

And what's that?

That my guardian won't love me so well, when he marries, as he does now.

Are you afraid that the woman he marries will endeavour to narrow so large a heart as his?

No; not if that woman were you. But, forgive my folly! (and she looked down ;) he would not take my hand so kindly as now he does he would not look in my face with pleasure, and with pity on my mother's account, as he does now: he would not call me his Emily: he would not bespeak every one's regard for his ward.

My dear, you are now almost a woman. He will, if he remain a single man, soon draw back into his heart that kindness and love for you, which, while you are a girl, he suffers to dwell upon his lips. You must expect this change of behaviour soon, from his prudence. You yourself, my love, will set him the example: you will grow more reserved in your outward behaviour, than hitherto there was reason to be.

O, madam! never tell me that! I should break my heart, were I twenty, and he did not treat me with the tenderness that he has always treated me with. If, indeed, he find me an encroacher; if he find me forward, and indiscreet, and troublesome; then let him call me anybody's Emily, rather than his.

You will have different notions, my dear, before that time

Then, I think, I shan't desire to live to see the time. Why, madam, all the comfort I have to set against my unhappiness from my mother, is, that so good, so virtuous, and so prudent a man as Sir Charles Grandison, calls me his Emily, and loves me as his child. Would you, madam, were you Lady Grandison, (now, tell me, would you,) grudge me these instances of his favour and affection?

Indeed, my dear, I would not: if I know my own heart, I would not.

And would you permit me to live with you? -Now it is out-Will you permit me to live with my guardian and you? This is a question I wanted to put to you; but was both ashamed and afraid, till you thus kindly emboldened me.

Indeed I would, if your guardian had no objection.

That don't satisfy me, madam. Would you be my earnest, my sincere advocate, and plead for me? He would not deny you anything. And would you (come, madam, I will put you to it-Would you) say, "Look you here, Sir Charles Grandison; this girl, this Emily, is a good sort of girl she has a great fortune: snares may be laid for her; she has no papa but you she has, poor thing!" [I hope you

would call me by names of pity, to move him,] "no mamma; or is more unhappy than if she had none. Where can you dispose of her so properly, as to let her be with us? I will be her protectress, her friend, her mamma”[Yes, do, madam, let me choose a mamma! Don't let the poor girl be without a mamma, if you can give her one. I am sure I will study to give you pleasure, and not pain] "I insist upon it, Sir Charles. It will make the poor girl's heart easy. She is told of the arts and tricks of men, where girls have great fortunes; and she is always in dread about them, and about her unhappy mother. Who will form plots against her, if she is with us?"-Dear, dear madam! you are moved in my favour [Who, Lucy, could have forborne being affected by her tender prattle? She threw her arms about me; I see you are moved in my favour!—And I will be your attendant: I will be your waiting-maid: I will help to adorn you, and to make you more and more lovely in the eyes of my guardian.

I could not bear this-No more, no more, my lovely girl, my innocent, my generous, my irresistible girl!-Were it to come to that, [It became me to be unreserved, for more reasons than one, to this sweet child-Not one request should my Emily make, that heart and mind I would not comply with: not one wish that I would not endeavour to promote and accomplish for her.

I folded her to my heart, as she hung about my neck.

I grieve you-I would not, for the world, grieve my young mamma, said she-Henceforth let me call you my mamma.-Mamma, as I have heard the word explained, is a more tender name even than mother-The unhappy Mrs Jervois shall be Mrs O'Hara, if she pleases; and only mother: a child must not renounce her mother, though the mother should renounce, or worse than renounce, her child. I must leave you, Emily. Say then my Emily.

I must leave you, my, and more than my Emily. You have cured me of sleepiness for this night!

O then I am sorry

No; don't be sorry. You have given me pain, 'tis true; but I think it is the sweetest pain that ever entered into a human heart. Such goodness! such innocence! such generosity-I thank God, my love, that there is in my knowledge so worthy a young heart as yours.

Now, how good this is! (and again she wrapped her arms about me.) And will you go?

I must, I must, my dear!-I can stay no longer. But take this assurance, that my Emily shall have a first place in my heart for ever. I will study to promote your happiness; and your wishes shall be the leaders of mine.

Then I am sure I shall live with my guar