distress in it than indignation.

How came the dear soul, (clothed as it is with such a silken vesture,) by
all its steadiness?* Was it necessary that the active gloom of such a
tyrant of a father, should commix with such a passive sweetness of a
will-less mother, to produce a constancy, an equanimity, a steadiness, in
the daughter, which never woman before could boast of? If so, she is
more obliged to that despotic father than I could have imagined a
creature to be, who gave distinction to every one related to her beyond
what the crown itself can confer.

* See Vol. I. Letters IX. XIV. and XIX. for what she herself says on that
steadiness which Mr. Lovelace, though a deserved sufferer by it, cannot
help admiring.

I hoped, I said, that she would admit of the intended visit, which I had
so often mentioned, of the two ladies.

She was here. She had seen me. She could not help herself at present.
She even had the highest regard for the ladies of my family, because of
their worthy characters. There she turned away her sweet face, and
vanquished an half-risen sigh.

I kneeled to her then. It was upon a verdant cushion; for we were upon
the grass walk. I caught her hand. I besought her with an earnestness
that called up, as I could feel, my heart to my eyes, to make me, by her
forgiveness and example, more worthy of them, and of her own kind and
generous wishes. By my soul, Madam, said I, you stab me with your
goodness--your undeserved goodness! and I cannot bear it!

Why, why, thought I, as I did several times in this conversation, will
she not generously forgive me? Why will she make it necessary for me to
bring Lady Betty and my cousin to my assistance? Can the fortress expect
the same advantageous capitulation, which yields not to the summons of a
resistless conqueror, as if it gave not the trouble of bringing up and
raising its heavy artillery against it?

What sensibilities, said the divine creature, withdrawing her hand, must
thou have suppressed! What a dreadful, what a judicial hardness of heart
must thine be! who canst be capable of such emotions, as sometimes thou
hast shown; and of such sentiments, as sometimes have flowed from thy
lips; yet canst have so far overcome them all as to be able to act as
thou hast acted, and that from settled purpose and premeditation; and
this, as it is said, throughout the whole of thy life, from infancy to
this time!

I told her, that I had hoped, from the