ment. For, to be required to answer piecemeal thus,
without knowing what is to follow, is a cursed ensnaring way of
proceeding.

They gave me the letter: I read it through to myself:--and by the
repetition of what I said, thou wilt guess at the remaining contents.

You shall find, Ladies, you shall find, my Lord, that I will not spare
myself. Then holding the letter in my hand, and looking upon it, as a
lawyer upon his brief,

Miss Harlowe says, 'That when your Ladyship,' [turning to Lady Betty,]
'shall know, that, in the progress to her ruin, wilful falsehoods,
repeated forgeries, and numberless perjuries, were not the least of my
crimes, you will judge that she can have no principles that will make her
worthy of an alliance with ladies of your's, and your noble sister's
character, if she could not, from her soul, declare, that such an
alliance can never now take place.'

Surely, Ladies, this is passion! This is not reason. If our family
would not think themselves dishonoured by my marrying a person whom I had
so treated; but, on the contrary, would rejoice that I did her this
justice: and if she has come out pure gold from the assay; and has
nothing to reproach herself with; why should it be an impeachment of her
principles, to consent that such an alliance take place?

She cannot think herself the worse, justly she cannot, for what was done
against her will.

Their countenances menaced a general uproar--but I proceeded.

Your Lordship read to us, that she had an hope, a presumptuous one: nay,
a punishably-presumptuous one, she calls it; 'that she might be a mean,
in the hand of Providence, to reclaim me; and that this, she knew, if
effected, would give her a merit with you all.' But from what would she
reclaim me?--She had heard, you'll say, (but she had only heard, at the
time she entertained that hope,) that, to express myself in the women's
dialect, I was a very wicked fellow!--Well, and what then?--Why, truly,
the very moment she was convinced, by her own experience, that the charge
against me was more than hearsay; and that, of consequence, I was a fit
subject for her generous endeavours to work upon; she would needs give me
up. Accordingly, she flies out, and declares, that the ceremony which
would repair all shall never take place!--Can this be from any other
motive than female resentment?

This brought them all upon me, as I intended it should: it was as a tub
to a whale; and after I had let th