ed by the violent death
of my father!

"Yet loss of fortune, though it mortified my pride, did not prove my
worst calamity. Perhaps it was scarcely to be ranked with evils, since
it furnished a touchstone by which my husband's affections were to be
tried; especially as the issue of the trial was auspicious; for my
misfortune seemed only to heighten the interest which my character had
made for me in the hearts of all that knew me. The paternal regards of
Sir Ralph had always been tender, but that tenderness seemed now to be
redoubled.

"New events made this consolation still more necessary. My unhappy
mother!--She was nearer to the dreadful scene when it happened; had no
surviving object to beguile her sorrow; was rendered, by long habit,
more dependent upon fortune than her child.

"A melancholy, always mute, was the first effect upon my mother. Nothing
could charm her eye, or her ear. Sweet sounds that she once loved, and
especially when her darling child was the warbler, were heard no longer.
How, with streaming eyes, have I sat and watched the dear lady, and
endeavoured to catch her eye, to rouse her attention!--But I must not
think of these things.

"But even this distress was little in comparison with what was to come.
A frenzy thus mute, motionless, and vacant, was succeeded by fits,
talkative, outrageous, requiring incessant superintendence, restraint,
and even violence.

"Why led you me thus back to my sad remembrances? Excuse me for the
present. I will tell you the rest some other time; to-morrow."

To-morrow, accordingly, my friend resumed her story.

"Let me now make an end," said she, "of my mournful narrative, and
never, I charge you, do any thing to revive it again.

"Deep as was my despondency, occasioned by these calamities, I was not
destitute of some joy. My husband and my child were lovely and
affectionate. In their caresses, in their welfare, I found peace; and
might still have found it, had there not been----. But why should I open
afresh wounds which time has imperfectly closed? But the story must some
time be told to you, and the sooner it is told and dismissed to
forgetfulness the better.

"My ill fate led me into company with a woman too well known in the idle
and dissipated circles. Her character was not unknown to me. There was
nothing in her features or air to obviate disadvantageous
prepossessions. I sought not her intercourse; I rather shunned it, as
unpleasing and discreditable