e:--you have an advocate _here_, which
has already gained your cause.

LOVEYET. Oh, Harriet, you are too good!--Conscious as I am of the rectitude
of my conduct, as it respects my Harriet;--sure as I am of not deserving
your displeasure, I still feel myself unworthy of such matchless goodness.

HARRIET. You say too much; and compel me to tell you that you merit my
highest esteem.

LOVEYET. Esteem! What a cold epithet!--And am not I entitled to something
more than _esteem_?

HARRIET. Excuse the poverty of the expression; and be assured, my heart
dictated a more exalted word;--let this confession atone for the fault.

LOVEYET. And yet I would fain attract your esteem too; for, I have heard
connoisseurs in the science of Love say, it is possible to _love_ an
object, and that to distraction, without having a particle of _esteem_ for
it.

HARRIET. I have assured you that _my_ esteem is at least equalled by a more
passionate affection:--but how strangely you talk!--First you acknowledge
yourself unworthy of my favour;--then you are alarmed that I should only
esteem you; and when I talk of a passion, superior to mere _Platonic_ love,
you are afraid, on the other hand, it is a blind, enthusiastic impulse, not
founded on _esteem_.--How inconsistent are lovers!

LOVEYET. Your reasoning, like your person, surprises, charms and
subdues:--I will be more consistent;--but our contention is only for
pre-eminence in love;--delightful emulation! Agreeable inconsistency!

HARRIET. I am now ashamed of my childish suspicions; but I should not have
been so credulous, had it not been for an affection, which rendered my
better judgment blind to the fallacy, and made me more apprehensive of your
inconstancy, than satisfied of your innocence; and this disposed me to
misinterpret every thing you said.

LOVEYET. And your apparent indifference, in consequence of that
misinterpretation, excited similar suspicions in me; and thus, mutual
distrust produced mutual misapprehension.

HARRIET. But you have not told me the particulars of your interview with
old Mr. Loveyet.

LOVEYET. Were you to hear those particulars, they would only afford you
pain;--'tis sufficient for me to tell you, he has turned me out of his
house, only because I told him, I was a friend to the new Constitution,
forsooth.

HARRIET. He is a strange character:--when I call'd on my father, I was
alarmed to find them at high words;--and he abus'd _me_ most unmercifully.