WINDSOR-JULY.
MY DEAR MADAM,

"If I made myself intelligible yesterday, this letter will be
expected; but expected or not, I know it will be read with candour and
indulgence.--You are all goodness, and I believe there will be need of
even all your goodness to allow for some parts of my past conduct.--But
I have been forgiven by one who had still more to resent. My courage
rises while I write. It is very difficult for the prosperous to be
humble. I have already met with such success in two applications for
pardon, that I may be in danger of thinking myself too sure of yours,
and of those among your friends who have had any ground of offence.--You
must all endeavour to comprehend the exact nature of my situation when I
first arrived at Randalls; you must consider me as having a secret which
was to be kept at all hazards. This was the fact. My right to place
myself in a situation requiring such concealment, is another question.
I shall not discuss it here. For my temptation to _think_ it a right,
I refer every caviller to a brick house, sashed windows below, and
casements above, in Highbury. I dared not address her openly; my
difficulties in the then state of Enscombe must be too well known to
require definition; and I was fortunate enough to prevail, before we
parted at Weymouth, and to induce the most upright female mind in the
creation to stoop in charity to a secret engagement.--Had she refused, I
should have gone mad.--But you will be ready to say, what was your
hope in doing this?--What did you look forward to?--To any thing, every
thing--to time, chance, circumstance, slow effects, sudden bursts,
perseverance and weariness, health and sickness. Every possibility of
good was before me, and the first of blessings secured, in obtaining her
promises of faith and correspondence. If you need farther explanation,
I have the honour, my dear madam, of being your husband's son, and
the advantage of inheriting a disposition to hope for good, which no
inheritance of houses or lands can ever equal the value of.--See
me, then, under these circumstances, arriving on my first visit to
Randalls;--and here I am conscious of wrong, for that visit might have
been sooner paid. You will look back and see that I did not come till
Miss Fairfax was in Highbury; and as _you_ were the person slighted, you
will forgive me instantly; but I must work on my father's compassion, by
reminding him, that so long as I absented myself f