 when she knows your birth and merit.


I will owe obligations of that kind to non but yourself, madam,
replied Henrietta
and I beg this young lady may know no mor•

of me than what is just necessary to recommend me to her good opinion as a servant.

The countess contested this point with her for some time; but finding her not to be dissuaded from her design, "Well!" said she, kindly,
you shall be indulged this once, but remember I claim your promise to come to me when a certain objection is removed; in the mean time we will settle you with miss Belmour in the way you chuse. She will be with my sister to-morrow morning; and if you come likewise, lady D— will introduce you to her.

Henrietta said she would not fail to attend lady D— Upon which the countess rose up, kissed her at parting, and desired she would look upon her as one of her most faithful friends.
Our fair heroine had reason to be satisfied with the kind manner in which lady D— recommended her to miss Belmour, as well as with the reception that young lady gave her. She carried her home with her in her coach, and behaved to her with an affability that Henrietta could no otherwise account for, than by suppossing the countess had discovered her true name and circumstances to her.— In this, however, she was mistaken: her young mistress was in love; she had occasion for a confidant. Henrietta's youth and gentleness promised her she

would be an indulgent one: besides, her good sense and the elegance of her person and behaviour so lessened the distance between the mistress and servant, that her pride was not wounded by the familiarity with which she condescended to treat her, as the necessary prelude to the confidence she was resolved to repose in her.
Henrietta listened with complaisance to the overflowings of a heart tender by nature, and wholly possessed, as she thought, by a deserving object; but when miss Belmour, in the course of frequent conversations on this exhaustless theme, gave her to understand that this lover of whom she boasted was the husband of another lady, from whom he had been parted several years, surprise, horror, grief, were so strongly impressed on her countenance, that her lady be•gan to repent of a confession she had made, it full confidence that her sentiments, whatever they were, must needs be approved by her ser•vant.
But it being now useless as well as dangerou• to retract what she had said, she was under • necessity of submitting to the mortifying •a• of defending her
