 more necessary I found it to hide her; and offering her daily up to God, I left her wholly to his disposal, determined neither my pride, vanity, or ambition, should interfere with the happiness I supplicated for her.
On perusing this description, I perceive at once the impossibility of your crediting it; yet far from accusing myself of partiality, I could call on all who ever beheld my daughter to attest my candor.—How readily would Lady Arundell have done so—entendered to her by a love only inferior to my own, that faithful friend found in declining life a new tye wound round her heart, for which she daily thanked me.
As nothing robs us of the confidence of youth like the appearance of mystery, when time called reflection to being in her tender mind, I slowly, and by degrees, confided to my daughter the painful events you have thus obliged me to commemorate. This indulgence secured

to me her whole heart, and I trembled only lest her deep sense of past misfortunes should affect her health; for sensibility was the leading feature in her character. Far from seeking to expound the future in her own favor, the flattering prospects her distinguished birth, and yet more distinguished endowments, might well spread before her, passed away like a shadow, and she saw only her mother. A thousand times has she bedewed my hand with a reverence the most endearing; and the tears with which she often embalmed the memory of her father, almost recompensed me for his loss. From that period her expressive eyes were fixed ever on mine with such blended sadness and admiration, as proved she thought me almost sainted by misfortune. More studious henceforward of my pleasure, more submissive to my will, more solicitous for my repose, it seemed as if in learning she was my only remaining tye on earth, she conceived the various affections and duties of all I had

lost devolved to, and centered in, herself. But sympathy was the genuine impulse of her nature; for with equal care she watched over her unhappy aunt.— Whenever that dear creature's incurable malady assumed the appearance of melancholy, she was extravagantly fond of musick.—At those intervals my lovely Mary would lean over her lute with the meek benignity of a descending angel, and extract from it such solemn sounds as breathed at once of peace and sorrow: insensibly soothing the perturbed spirit, and melting only those yet undisturbed. That subtle essence of our natures, sensibility, which madness can only unfix, not annihilate, often paused unconsciously upon the pleasure, and softly sunk into repose.
A child thus eminently amiable at
