 to entrap my amiable, innocent, unsuspecting Fanny. And because my eyes were supposed to be open to

the thousand objections against a match, in favour of which not one single advantage can be presented, I was to be kept out of the secret till too late effectually to interfere; whilst my dear and only sister was to prove a victim to the need and prodigality of the one, and to the absurd and destructive vanity of the other.
What a despicable character does this letter plainly prove Wilmot's to be. I am amazed, on looking back, that the whole affair did not occur to my suspicion. But the art of the one, and the low cunning of the other, added to my trust in Fanny's confidence in my advice, all conspired to deceive me. You see too, there is a hint of a previous engagement. Poor Miss Parsons! her dejection and depression are now fully accounted for. How hard has been her fate. Deprived of her parents at a period of life when the feelings are most acutely sensible to the shafts of misfortune,

constrained to endure a haughty and indelicate dependance, her affections and her pride had yet a wound more painful to receive, a sting more corroding to undergo. Her sufferings, and her patient forbearance of complaint, endear her to me in the most affecting point of view, and I shall now more anxiously than ever exert myself to soften her anguish, by every kindness and attention in my power to bestow.
As to my dear Fanny, though this providential discovery produced a temporary mortification, and drew some tears of vexation from her eyes, her heart, slightly if at all touched, had nothing deeply to hurt or painfully to interest it; and as she was thoroughly sensible of the risques from which she had just escaped, she beheld with horror the precipice on which she had been standing, and required not either argument or persuasion (though by way of caution I bestowed

both very lavishly) to convince her how fortunate this accident had proved. Her innocent mind, unacquainted with disguise and unused to concealment, felt relieved of a painful weight by the confession which her first agitation had extorted from her; yet I had no little difficulty in reconciling her to herself on account of having forfeited her promise, which indeed she had falsified almost unconsciously in the height of her emotions.
Since I have done so, said she, though I think I have been to blame, do not expose me to Mrs. Hindon. Dishonourably as she has acted towards me, I ought not to have receded from the promise I gave
