himself opportunity to fee whether I am or am not reserved. I won't be mean, Lucy, I repeat for the twentieth time. I won't deferve to be defpifed by him-No! tho' he were the fovereign of the greatest empire on earth. In this believe

Your HARRIET BYRON.

Sir CHARLES GRANDISON, To Dr. BARTLETT. [Inclofed in the preceding.]

I

March 18.

HAVE had a vifit, my dear and reverend friend, from Emily's mother. She will very probably make one alfo at Colnebrooke, before I can be fo happy as to get thither. I difpatch this therefore, to apprife you and Lord L. of fuch a probability; which is the greater, as she knows Emily to be there, thro' the inadvertence of Saunders, and finds me to be in town. I will give you the particulars of what paffed between us, for your better information, if fhe goes to Colnebrooke.

I was preparing to attend Lord W. as by appointment, when she sent in her name to me.

I received her civilly. She had the affurance to make up to me with a full expectation that I would falute her; but I took, or rather received, her ready hand, and led her to a chair by the fire-fide. You have never seen her. She thinks herself still handsome; and, did not he vices make her odious, and her whole afpect fhew her neart, fhe would not be much mis

taken.

How does Emily, Sir? galanting her fan: Is the girl here? Bid her come to me. I will fee her. She is not here, madam.

Where is the then? She has not been at Mrs. Lane's for fome time.

She

She is in the beft protection: She is with my two fifters.

And pray, Sir Charles Grandifon, What do you intend to do with her? The girl begins to be womanly.

She laughed; and her heart fpoke out at her eyes. Tell me what you propofe to do with her? You know, added fhe, affecting a ferious air, that she is my child.

If, madam, you deserve to be thought her mother, you will be fatisfied with the hands fhe is in.

Pih!-I never loved you good men: Where a fine girl comes in their way, I know what I knowShe looked wantonly, and laughed again.

I am not to talk ferioufly with you, Mrs. Jervois : But what have you to fay to my ward?

Say!-Why, you know, Sir, I am her mother: And I have a mind to have the care of her perfon myfelf. You must (fo her father directed) have the care of her fortune: But I have a mind, for her reputationfake, to take the girl out of the hands of fo young a guardian. I hope you will not oppose me.

If this be all your bufinefs, madam, I must be excufed. I am preparing, as you fee, to drefs. Where is Emily? I will fee the girl.

If your motive be motherly love, little, madam, as you have acted the mother by her, you fhall fee her when the is in town. But her perfon, and reputation, as well as fortune, must be my care.

I am married, Šir: And my hufband is a man of honour.

1

Your marriage, madam, gives a new reason why Emily must not be in your care.

Let me tell you, Sir, that my husband is a man of honour, and as brave a man as yourfelf; and he will fee me righted.

Be he who he will, he can have no business with Emily. Did you come to tell me you are married, madam?

I

I did, Sir. Don't you wish me joy?— Joy, madam! I wish you to deferve joy, and you will then perhaps have it. You'll excuse memake my friends wait.

e-I fhall

I could not reftrain my indignation. This woman marries, as fhe calls it, twice or thrice a year.

Well, Sir, then you will find time, perhaps, to talk with Major O-Hara. He is of one of the best families in Ireland. And he will not let me be robbed of my daughter.

Major O-Hara, madam, has nothing to do with the daughter of my late unhappy friend. Nor have I any-thing to say to him. Emily is in my protection; and I am forry to say, that she never had been so, were not the woman who calls herself her mother, the perfon leaft fit to be intrufted with her daughter. Permit me the favour of leading you to your chair.

She then broke out into the language in which she always concludes thefe vifits. She threatened me with the refentments of Major O-Hara; and told me, He had been a conqueror in half a dozen duels.

I offered my hand. She refused it not. I led her o her chair.

I will call again to-morrow afternoon, faid fhe (threatening with her head), perhaps with the major, Sir. And I expect you will produce the little harlotry

I withdrew in filent contempt. Vile woman!

But let nothing of this escape you to my Emily. I think she should not fee her but in my prefence. The poor girl will be terrified into fits, as fhe was the last time the faw her, if fhe comes, and I am not there. But poffibly I may hear no more of this wicked woman for a month or two. Having a power to make her annuity either one or two hundred pounds, according to her behaviour, at my own difcretion, the man fhe has married, who could have no inducement, but the annuity, if he has married her, will not fuffer her to

incur fuch a reduction of it; for, you know, I have always hitherto paid her two hundred pounds a year. Her threatening to see me to-morrow may be to amuse me while fhe goes. The woman is a foolish woman; but, being accuftomed to intrigue, she aims at cunning and contrivance.

I am now haftening to Lord W. I hope his woman will not be admitted to his table, as the generally is, let who will be prefent; yet, it seems, knows not how to be filent, whatever be the fubject. I have never chofen either to dine or fup with my Lord, that I might not be under a neceffity of objecting to Company: And were I not to object to it, as I am a near kinfman to my Lord, and know the fituation fhe is in with him, my complaifance might be imputed to motives altogether unworthy of a man of Ipirit.

her

Yours of this morning was brought me, juft as I was concluding. There is one paragraph in it, that greatly interefts me.

You hint to me, that my fifters, tho' my abfences are short, would be glad to receive now-and-then a letter from me. You, my dear friend, have engaged me into a kind of habit, which makes me write to you with eafe and pleafure.To you,, and to our Beauchamp, methinks, I can write any-thing. Ufe, it is true, would make it equally agreeable to me to write to my fifters. I would not have them think that there is a brother in the world, that better loves his fifters, than I do mine: And now, you know, I have three. But why have they not fignified as much to me? Could I give pleafure to any whom I love, without giving great pain to myself, it would be unpardonable

not to do it.

I could eafily carry on a correfpondence with my fifters, were they to be very earnest about it: But then it must be a correfpondence: The writing must not be all of one fide. Do they think I fhould not be equally pleafed to hear what they are about, from time VOL. III. C

to

to time; and what, occafionally, their fentiments are, upon perfons and things? If it fall in your way, and you think it not a mere temporary with (for young Ladies often wish, and think no more of the matter); then propofe the condition.-But caution them, that the moment I discover, that they are lefs frank, and more referved, than I am, there will be an end of the correfpondence. My three fifters are moft amiably. frank, for women-But, thus challenged, dare they enter the lifts, upon honour, with a man, a brother, upon equal terms?-O no! They dare not. It is not: in woman to be unreferved in fome points; and (to be impartial) perhaps they should not: Yet, furely, there is now-and-then a man, a brother, to be met with, who would be the more grateful for the confidence repofed in him.

Were this proposal to be accepted, I could write to them many of the things that I communicate to you. I have but few fecrets. I only wish to keep. from relations fo dear to me, things that could not poffibly yield them pleasure. I am fure I could truft to your judgment, the paffages that might be read to them from my letters to you.

Sometimes, indeed, I love to divert myfelf with Charlotte's humorous curiofity; for fhe feems, as I told her lately, to love to fuppofe fecrets, where there are none, for a compliment to her own fagacity, when the thinks fhe has found them out; and I love at fuch times to fee her puzzled, and at a fault, as a punishment for her declining to fpeak out.

You have told me heretofore, in excufe for the diftance, which my two elder fifters obferve to their brother, when I have complained of it to you, that it proceeded from awe, from reverence for him. But why fhould there be that awe, that reverence? Surely, my dear friend, if this is fpontaneous, and invincible, in them, there must be fome fault in my behaviour, fome feeming want of freedom in my

manner,