 in the divine will sooths our sad souls to peace; or hopes spring forward to another goal, and pierce beyond the stars.
BUT while vain doubts and fears torment the heart, while passion has possession of the soul, and

still impels us forward through amaze, where our bewildered reason finds no clue, where peace is lost and keen disquiet fills its vacant place; where our desires are raised but to be mocked, and cruelty repaid for artless love!—Sure, sure, this state is worse, far worse than lady Somerville's! She feels the stroke of death; but lady Harriet feels a living torture! inflicted too by whom her soul adored.
I HAVE been led into this reflection by observing that lady Harriet's health and spirits have declined visibly, ever since her unlucky interview with captain Barnard; and I am certain that his almost perpetual residence at Ransford-Hall, increases her disquiet. In his first act of inconstancy, she might with great reason imagine that fortune only had turned the scale in favour of her rival, and she had still the melancholy consolation of supposing herself beloved, though by a worthless man.
HIS present attachment can arise only from choice or galantry: and it is certainly much more difficult to bear contempt, than injury. Had he died at that time he left her in Paris, her grief for his loss would by this time have been softened into a gentle melancholy, which though it might for ever have barred her pretensions to happiness, would not have rendered her half so wretched as she is at this moment, and I fear will ever be.
LET not what I have said upon this subject make my dear Fanny think that I am not extremely affected with lady Somerville's distress.—I acknowledge that her sufferings have been great, but they certainly came to a period when her husband died; and time has, I doubt not, insensibly lessened her affliction. I also hope that

there is yet in reserve for her, the felicity of seeing her daughter amiable and happy.





I AM so sincerely charmed at the hope of your prophecy in favour of lady Somerville being immediately accomplished, that I can neither think, speak or write upon any other subject.—Sir John returned from London in two days after Laura had become our guest; she and I were just come back from paying an evening visit to lady Somerville, when he entered the drawing room, and introduced a young Italian nobleman, who had been recommended to him, by one of his most intimate friends at Paris.
I NEVER beheld a handsomer youth; tall graceful and finely made
