 afraid, a stricken deer; but I will hope that the wound is not mortal, and that it may yet be healed, though not without a cicatrice.—Why!—Ask yourself, my sister, why all these apprehensions about Miss Ashford? Why is she to be married to Lord Lucan, merely because she came with him to visit you? And why should you suspect an amiable young woman of such mean malice, as, without provocation, to attempt to render you ridiculous?—These are not the genuine feelings of my Louisa's heart! the stings of jealousy have instilled its venom, and this passion has but two sources, pride and love.

I most sincerely wish that Lord Lucan and Miss Ashford were married, and that they were gone to his lordship's seat in the North, or to any other point of the compass that may be most remote from the neighbourhood of Southfield.
I cannot help trembling for your happiness, Louisa—I well know that I have nothing else to fear for; but is not that sufficient! I have, with pain, long beheld your growing partiality for his lordship; yet I hoped, against the conviction of my own heart, which still overflows with tenderness for an unworthy object, that you would be able to conquer it—But let me here observe, Louisa, that our situations are so widely different, that the weakness which may in mine, not

only be pardoned, but pitied, becomes criminal in yours.
This you may possibly say, is hard measure; but as we were none of us in a condition to make terms for ourselves, before we came into the world, we must submit to those that this same world has imposed on us since; and believe me, that they who struggle least against those chains which custom has forged for our sex are least likely to feel their weight.—The world is jealous of its rites; it haughtily resents, and harshly chastizes, the smallest breach of them; nor did I ever know a man or woman, who boasted that they despised its laws, and trusted to their own integrity, who were not soon severely punished by its contempt or censure.

So much by way of censor; now let the friend and sister plead for the preservation of your peace, which cannot be maintained with loss of fame, though conscious innocence might plead your justification ever so strongly—Should your character happen to be impeached, from any misconduct of yours, remember that your husband has a right to resent your having forfeited the highest trust which manly confidence can commit to female delicacy, the preservation both of his honour and her
