youth, I
would have any man that I liked--everything. I know, of course--for
did I not see? It is that young Clavering to whom your little heart
wishes to render itself--not the captain who is a fool--such a fool!
but the other who is not a fool, but a fine fellow--and so handsome!
Yes; there is no doubt as to that. He is beautiful as a Phoebus.
[This was good-natured on the part of Sophie, who, as the reader may
remember, hated Harry Clavering herself.]

Well--why should he not be your own? As for your poor Sophie, she
would do all in her power to assist the friend whom she love. There
is that little girl--yes; it is true as I told you. But little girls
cannot have all they want always. He is a gay deceiver. These men
who are so beautiful as Phoebus are always deceivers. But you need
not be the one deceived--you with your money and your beauty and
your--what you call rank. No, I think not; and I think that little
girl must put up with it, as other little girls have done, since the
men first learned how to tell lies. That is my advice, and if you
will let me I can give you good assistance.

Dearest Julie, think of all this, and do not banish your Sophie. I
am so true to you, that I cannot live without you. Send me back one
word of permission, and I will come to you, and kneel at your feet.
And in the meantime, I am your most devoted friend,

SOPHIE.

Lady Ongar, on the receipt of this letter, was not at all changed in her
purpose with reference to Madam Gordeloup. She knew well enough where
her Sophie's heart was placed, and would yield to no further pressure
from that quarter; but Sophie's reasoning, nevertheless, had its effect.
She, Lady Ongar, with her youth, her beauty, her wealth, and her rank,
why should she not have that one thing which alone could make her happy,
seeing, as she did see, or as she thought she saw, that in making
herself happy she could do so much, could confer such great blessings on
him she loved? She had already found that the money she had received as
the price of herself had done very little toward making her happy in her
present state. What good was it to her that she had a carriage and
horses and two footmen six feet high? One pleasant word from lips that
she could love--from the lips of man or woman that she could
esteem--would be worth it all. She had gone down to her pleasant place
in the country