l
now, and been present on this occasion!

Lady Sarah. Well, but, begging your Lordship's pardon, let us see if
any thing can be done for this poor lady.

Miss Ch. If Mr. Lovelace has nothing to object against the lady's
character, (and I presume to think he is not ashamed to do her justice,
though it may make against himself,) I cannot but see her honour and
generosity will compel from him all that we expect. If there be any
levities, any weaknesses, to be charged upon the lady, I should not open
my lips in her favour; though in private I would pity her, and deplore
her hard hap. And yet, even then, there might not want arguments, from
honour to gratitude, in so particular a case, to engage you, Sir, to make
good the vows it is plain you have broken.

Lady Betty. My niece Charlotte has called upon you so justly, and has
put the question to you so properly, that I cannot but wish you would
speak to it directly, and without evasion.

All in a breath then bespoke my seriousness, and my justice: and in this
manner I delivered myself, assuming an air sincerely solemn.

'I am very sensible that the performance of the task you have put me upon
will leave me without excuse: but I will not have recourse either to
evasion or palliation.

'As my cousin Charlotte has severely observed, I am not ashamed to do
justice to Miss Harlowe's merit.

'I own to you all, and, what is more, with high regret, (if not with
shame, cousin Charlotte,) that I have a great deal to answer for in my
usage of this lady. The sex has not a nobler mind, nor a lovelier person
of it. And, for virtue, I could not have believed (excuse me, Ladies)
that there ever was a woman who gave, or could have given, such
illustrious, such uniform proofs of it: for, in her whole conduct, she
has shown herself to be equally above temptation and art; and, I had
almost said, human frailty.

'The step she so freely blames herself for taking, was truly what she
calls compulsatory: for though she was provoked to think of going off
with me, she intended it not, nor was provided to do so: neither would
she ever have had the thought of it, had her relations left her free,
upon her offered composition to renounce the man she did not hate, in
order to avoid the man she did.

'It piqued my pride, I own, that I could so little depend upon the force
of those impressions which I had the vanity to hope I had made in a heart
so delicate; and, in my worst devices again