upon the example she had given us, which was followed with such hopeful
effects! With what a noble confidence could she look upon her dear Mr.
Harlowe, as a person made happy by her; and be delighted to think that
nothing but purity streamed from a fountain so pure!

'Now, my dear, reverse, as I daily do, this charming prospect. See my
dear mother, sorrowing in her closet; endeavouring to suppress her sorrow
at her table, and in those retirements where sorrow was before a
stranger: hanging down her pensive head: smiles no more beaming over her
benign aspect: her virtue made to suffer for faults she could not be
guilty of: her patience continually tried (because she has more of it
than any other) with repetitions of faults she is as much wounded by, as
those can be from whom she so often hears of them: taking to herself, as
the fountain-head, a taint which only had infected one of the
under-currents: afraid to open her lips (were she willing) in my favour,
lest it should be thought she has any bias in her own mind to failings
that never could have been suspected in her: robbed of that pleasing
merit, which the mother of well-nurtured and hopeful children may glory
in: every one who visits her, or is visited by her, by dumb show, and
looks that mean more than words can express, condoling where they used to
congratulate: the affected silence wounding: the compassionating look
reminding: the half-suppressed sigh in them, calling up deeper sighs from
her; and their averted eyes, while they endeavour to restrain the rising
tear, provoking tears from her, that will not be restrained.

'When I consider these things, and, added to these, the pangs that tear
in pieces the stronger heart of my FATHER, because it cannot relieve
itself by those which carry the torturing grief to the eyes of softer
spirits: the overboiling tumults of my impatient and uncontroulable
BROTHER, piqued to the heart of his honour, in the fall of a sister, in
whom he once gloried: the pride of an ELDER SISTER, who had given
unwilling way to the honours paid over her head to one born after her:
and, lastly, the dishonour I have brought upon two UNCLES, who each
contended which should most favour their then happy niece:--When, I say,
I reflect upon my fault in these strong, yet just lights, what room can
there be to censure any body but my unhappy self? and how much reason
have I to say, If I justify myself, mine own heart shall condemn me: if I
say I am p