 me of malevolence, or suppose that I do not truly rejoice in Lucy's felicity. But there is, I know not why, a kind of weight that hangs upon my mind, which I find it impossible to remove. Perhaps change of place may help to shake it off.—Be that as it may, I shall certainly comply with your's and Lucy's request.
MY lord has kindly promised to accompany me, and our sweet little babe is to be left at lady Lawson's. Indeed, Fanny, you scarce can think what a sacrifice I make to quit him for a day; but he will be under the protection of the best of women.
I FEAR there is a scene preparing that will trouble her repose. That bad miss Fanning! what a heart must hers be? how void of gratitude! and where that virtue is wanting, there can subsist no other.—Neither precept nor example can operate on base minds.
IS it not strange that nature should vary so much in the human genius as to create a Lucy Straffon, and a Mary Fanning! so nearly of the same age too; both descended from good families; and both well educated. The animal creation do not differ thus from their own species. There are no furious sheep, nor mild tigers.—Nature is uniform in all her works, but man.—Hapless variety! sad source of misery! the tiger and the lamb are not less similar than the betrayer, and betrayed—yet both wear the same form, and only by experience is the difference found.—Nay, sometimes we have seen the fairest face conceal the vilest heart; as lurks the serpent underneath the rose.—This is a mortifying subject; I will no more of it.
FANNY Weston, as you guessed, is in high spirits, at the idea of Lucy's wedding.—She

talks of nothing but dress, equipage, and jewels, ever since it has been mentioned—but a new subject is of infinite use in the country; and I do not know whether a great funeral had not entertained her quite as much.—Nodding plumes and painted escutcheons will amuse the imagination, when gilt coaches and gay liveries do not come in the way.—
HAPPY trifler! how I envy her—yet I am sure she loves Lucy, and fancies that she is really enamoured of Sir James Thornton too.—I am certain that lady Harriet would gladly be excused from going to London, but I will not seem to see which way her inclinations tend.
" The silent heart, which grief assails,
" Treads soft and lonesome, o'
