e her to renounce her present
asylum, and go forth, without a protector, into a world she has already
felt so unfriendly."

'What could I say to this, Matilda? I only cried heartily, begged pardon,
and promised to be a good girl in future. And so here am I neutralised
again, for I cannot, in honour or common good-nature, tease poor Lucy by
interfering with Hazlewood, although she has so little confidence in me;
and neither can I, after this grave appeal, venture again upon such
delicate ground with papa. So I burn little rolls of paper, and sketch
Turks' heads upon visiting cards with the blackened end--I assure you I
succeeded in making a superb Hyder-Ally last night--and I jingle on my
unfortunate harpsichord, and begin at the end of a grave book and read it
backward. After all, I begin to be very much vexed about Brown's silence.
Had he been obliged to leave the country, I am sure he would at least
have written to me. Is it possible that my father can have intercepted
his letters? But no, that is contrary to all his principles; I don't
think he would open a letter addressed to me to-night, to prevent my
jumping out of window to-morrow. What an expression I have suffered to
escape my pen! I should be ashamed of it, even to you, Matilda, and used
in jest. But I need not take much merit for acting as I ought to do. This
same Mr. Vanbeest Brown is by no means so very ardent a lover as to hurry
the object of his attachment into such inconsiderate steps. He gives one
full time to reflect, that must be admitted. However, I will not blame
him unheard, nor permit myself to doubt the manly firmness of a character
which I have so often extolled to you. Were he capable of doubt, of fear,
of the shadow of change, I should have little to regret.

'And why, you will say, when I expect such steady and unalterable
constancy from a lover, why should I be anxious about what Hazlewood
does, or to whom he offers his attentions? I ask myself the question a
hundred times a day, and it only receives the very silly answer that one
does not like to be neglected, though one would not encourage a serious
infidelity.

'I write all these trifles because you say that they amuse you, and yet I
wonder how they should. I remember, in our stolen voyages to the world of
fiction, you always admired the grand and the romantic,--tales of
knights, dwarfs, giants, and distressed damsels, oothsayers, visions,
beckoning ghosts, and bloody hands; whereas I w