Well, but God bless you, my dear! My nursery calls upon me! The dear little soul is so fond of me! Adieu. Compliments to every-body i haveso much reason to love: Mr. Reeves’s too. Once more. Adieu.

ELIZA REi:VS.

Letter VII.

Miss Byron. To Mrs. Reeves.

Selby-liouse, Friday, September 8. Your kind letter, my dear cousin, has, at the same time, delighted and pained me. I rejoice in the declared esteem of one of the best of men; and I honour him for his friendly love expr^‘ssed to you and my cousin, in the visit he made you: but I am pained at your calling upon me (in pity to my weakness, shall I call it? a weakness so ill concealed) to rejoice, that the excellent man, when he has dispatched all his affairs of consequence, and has nothing else to do, may possid[//, for you cannot be certain, make me a visit in Northamptonshire. () my cousin! And were his absence, and the appre-hension of his being the husband of another woman, think you, the occasion of my indisposition; that I must now, that the other affair seems determined in a manner so unexpected, be bid at once to be well? Sir Charles Grandison, my dear cousin, may ho-nour us with the prognosticated visit, or not, as he pleases: but were he to declare himself my lover, my heart would not be so joyful as you seem to expect, if Lady Clementina is to be unhappy. What though the refusal of marriage was hers; was not that re-fusal the greatest sacrifice that ever woman made to her superior duty? Does she not still avow her love to him? And itiiist he not, ovg/it he not, ever to love her? And here my pride puts in its claim to attention Shall your Harriet sit down and think herself happy in a second-place love? Yet let me own to you, my cousin, that Sir Charles Grandison is dearer to me than all else that I hold most dear in this world: and if Clementina could be not?/;?-happy [happy I have no notion she can be without him] and he were to declare himself my lover; affectation, be gone! I would say; I will trust to my own heart, and to my future conduct, to make for myself an interest in his affections, that should enrich my content; in other words, that should make me more than contented.

But time will soon determine my destiny: I will have patience to wait its determination. I make no doubt but he has sufficient reasons for all he does.

I am as much delighted, as you could be, at the notice he took of your dear infant. The brave must be humane: and what greater instance of humanity can be shewn, than for grown persons to look back upon the state they were once themselves in, with tenderness and compassion?