Vol. V.
Letter XXX.

I bit my lip for vexation. And was silent.

Miss Howe, proceeded she, knows the full state of matters already, Sir.
The answer I expect from her respects myself, not you. Her heart is too
warm in the cause of friendship, to leave me in suspense one moment
longer than is necessary as to what I want to know. Nor does her answer
absolutely depend upon herself. She must see a person first, and that
person perhaps see others.

The cursed smuggler-woman, Jack!--Miss Howe's Townsend, I doubt not--
Plot, contrivance, intrigue, stratagem!--Underground-moles these women--
but let the earth cover me!--let me be a mole too, thought I, if they
carry their point!--and if this lady escape me now!

She frankly owned that she had once thought of embarking out of all our
ways for some one of our American colonies. But now that she had been
compelled to see me, (which had been her greatest dread), and which she
might be happiest in the resumption of her former favourite scheme, if
Miss Howe could find her a reputable and private asylum, till her cousin
Morden could come.--But if he came not soon, and if she had a difficulty
to get to a place of refuge, whether from her brother or from any body
else, [meaning me, I suppose,] she might yet perhaps go abroad; for, to
say the truth, she could not think of returning to her father's house,
since her brother's rage, her sister's upbraidings, her father's anger,
her mother's still-more-affecting sorrowings, and her own consciousness
under them all, would be unsupportable to her.

O Jack! I am sick to death, I pine, I die, for Miss Howe's next letter!
I would bind, gag, strip, rob, and do any thing but murder, to intercept
it.

But, determined as she seems to be, it was evident to me, nevertheless,
that she had still some tenderness for me.

She often wept as she talked, and much oftener sighed. She looked at me
twice with an eye of undoubted gentleness, and three times with an eye
tending to compassion and softness; but its benign rays were as often
snatched back, as I may say, and her face averted, as if her sweet eyes
were not to be trusted, and could not stand against my eager eyes;
seeking, as they did, for a lost heart in her's, and endeavouring to
penetrate to her very soul.

More than once I took her hand. She struggled not much against the
freedom. I pressed it once with my lips--she was not very angry. A
frown indeed--but a frown that had more