 visit her without the customary forms of introduction.
She hastened to Charlotte, impatient to be informed if she had any knowledge of Mrs. Meynell, and anxious to solve a most painful doubt which arose in her mind, left Frederick Seymour should be capable of deserting his amiable relation because she was unfortunate. A doubt of those in whose integrity we

have confided, in whose virtue we are interested, is a situation of mind the most gloomy and comfortless. Suspicion is like a mist, which renders the object it shades so uncertain, that the figure must be finished by imagination; and, when distrust takes the pencil, the strokes are generally so dark, that the disappointed heart sickens at the picture.
Julia related to Charlotte the circumstances which Mrs. Evans had told her concerning Mrs. Meynell, concealing, however, her account of Mr. Seymour's criminal designs, which she thought it was improper to communicate to any one. Charlotte told her, that she had frequently heard Frederick Seymour speak of Mrs. Meynell with the most affectionate concern. "We have scarcely had a moment's téte-àtéte," said Charlotte, "since you came to town, or I should certainly have

mentioned to you what I had heard of her. Mr. Seymour has often told me how much he was shocked, at his return from the continent, to find her married to such a man as Captain Meynell; and he has visited her three or four times since we came to town, but she will not allow him to bring me to wait upon her. He says, he is sure that Mrs. Seymour has been insolent to her, and, I suppose, she apprehends the same treatment from me: I cannot intrude upon her against her consent, but I hope she will be persuaded to see me in time." "But, my dear Charlotte," rejoined Julia, "we will not wait these slow determinations. She has not forbidden me to come, and I will go directly to Mrs. Seymour, oblige her to introduce me to Mrs. Meynell, and then bring you together at my uncle's." Julia, earnest in her project, without farther deliberation, called

upon Mrs. Seymour, and enquired if she had an hour of leisure that morning. Mrs. Seymour assured her, that she was quite disengaged, and vastly happy to see her.
Since the period of Mr. Clifford's return from the East, Mrs. Seymour had behaved to Julia with the utmost cordiality, as she now thought her acquaintance eligible; though she could feel
