What I have said, I have said, replied Mr. Reeves. Pity is but one remove from love. Mrs. Reeves (there she sits) was first brought to pity me; for never was man more madly in love than I; and then I thought myself sure of her. And so it proved. I can tell you I am no enemy to Mr. Fowler.

And so, my dear, Mr. Fowler seems to think he has met with a woman who would make a fit wife for him: but your Harriet, I doubt, has not in Mr. Fowler met with a man whom she can — think a fit husband for her.

The very next morning, Sir Rowland himself —

But now, my Lucy, if I proceed to tell you all the fine things that are said of me, and to me, what will my uncle Selby say? Will he not attribute all I shall repeat of this sort, to that pride, to that va-nity, to that fondness of admiration, which he, as well as Mr. Greville, is continually charging upon all our sex?

Yet he expects that I shall give a minute account of every thing that passes, and of every conversation in which I have any part. Flow shall I do to please him? And yet I know I shall best please him, if I give him room to find fault with me. But then should he for my faults blame the whole sex? Is that just?

You will tell me, I know, that if I give speeches and conversations, I ought to give them justly: that the humours and characters of persons cannot be known unless I repeat xvhat they say, and their manner of saying: that I must leave it to the speakers and complimenters to answer for the likeness of the pictures they draw: that I know best my own heart, and whether I am puffed up by the praises given me: that if I am, I shall discover it by my superciliousness; and be enough punished on the discovery, by incurring, from those I love, deserved blame, if not contempt, instead of preserving their wished-for esteem. — Let me add to all this, that there is an author (I forget who) who says, “ It is lawful to repeat those things, though spoken in our praise, that are necessary to be known, and cannot otherwise be come at.”

And now let me ask, Will this preamble do, once for all?

It will. And so says my aunt Selby. And so says every one but my uncle. Well then I will proceed, and repeat all that shall be said, and that as well to my disadvantage as advantage; only resolving not to be exalted with the one, and to do my endeavour to amend by the other. And here, pray tell my uncle, that I do not desire he will spare me; since the faults he shall find in his Harriet shall always put her upon her guard. — Not, however, to conceal them from his discerning eye; but to amend them.