after this confession we should suspect that you
secretly intend to praise yourself, while you would be thought only to
commend another.

Our family has indeed been strangely discomposed.--Discomposed!--It has
been in tumults, ever since the unhappy transaction; and I have borne
all the blame; yet should have had too much concern from myself, had I
been more justly spared by every one else.

For, whether it be owing to a faulty impatience, having been too
indulgently treated to be inured to blame, or to the regret I have to
hear those censured on my account, whom it is my duty to vindicate; I
have sometimes wished, that it had pleased God to have taken me in my
last fever, when I had every body's love and good opinion; but oftener
that I had never been distinguished by my grandfather as I was: since
that distinction has estranged from me my brother's and sister's
affections; at least, has raised a jealousy with regard to the
apprehended favour of my two uncles, that now-and-then overshadows their
love.

My brother being happily recovered of his fever, and his wound in a
hopeful way, although he has not yet ventured abroad, I will be as
particular as you desire in the little history you demand of me. But
heaven forbid that any thing should ever happen which may require it to
be produced for the purpose you mention!

I will begin, as you command, with Mr. Lovelace's address to my sister;
and be as brief as possible. I will recite facts only; and leave you
to judge of the truth of the report raised, that the younger sister has
robbed the elder.

It was in pursuance of a conference between Lord M. and my uncle Antony,
that Mr. Lovelace [my father and mother not forbidding] paid his respect
to my sister Arabella. My brother was then in Scotland, busying himself
in viewing the condition of the considerable estate which was left him
there by his generous godmother, together with one as considerable in
Yorkshire. I was also absent at my Dairy-house, as it is called,* busied
in the accounts relating to the estate which my grandfather had
the goodness to devise to me; and which once a year was left to my
inspection, although I have given the whole into my father's power.

* Her grandfather, in order to invite her to him as often as
her other friends would spare her, indulged her in erecting
and fitting up a diary-house in her own taste. When
finished, it was so much admired for its elegant simplicity