not to be sensible that it would be unnatural. You must not expect
news for we see no one with whom we are in the least acquainted, or in
whose proceedings we have any Interest. You must not expect scandal
for by the same rule we are equally debarred either from hearing or
inventing it.--You must expect from me nothing but the melancholy
effusions of a broken Heart which is ever reverting to the Happiness
it once enjoyed and which ill supports its present wretchedness. The
Possibility of being able to write, to speak, to you of my lost Henry
will be a luxury to me, and your goodness will not I know refuse to read
what it will so much releive my Heart to write. I once thought that to
have what is in general called a Freind (I mean one of my own sex
to whom I might speak with less reserve than to any other person)
independant of my sister would never be an object of my wishes, but how
much was I mistaken! Charlotte is too much engrossed by two confidential
correspondents of that sort, to supply the place of one to me, and I
hope you will not think me girlishly romantic, when I say that to
have some kind and compassionate Freind who might listen to my sorrows
without endeavouring to console me was what I had for some time wished
for, when our acquaintance with you, the intimacy which followed it and
the particular affectionate attention you paid me almost from the first,
caused me to entertain the flattering Idea of those attentions being
improved on a closer acquaintance into a Freindship which, if you were
what my wishes formed you would be the greatest Happiness I could
be capable of enjoying. To find that such Hopes are realised is a
satisfaction indeed, a satisfaction which is now almost the only one I
can ever experience.--I feel myself so languid that I am sure were you
with me you would oblige me to leave off writing, and I cannot give you
a greater proof of my affection for you than by acting, as I know you
would wish me to do, whether Absent or Present. I am my dear Emmas
sincere freind E. L.

LETTER the NINTH Mrs MARLOWE to Miss LUTTERELL Grosvenor Street, April
10th

Need I say my dear Eloisa how wellcome your letter was to me I cannot
give a greater proof of the pleasure I received from it, or of the
Desire I feel that our Correspondence may be regular and frequent than
by setting you so good an example as I now do in answering it before the
end of the week--. But do not imagine that I claim any merit i