 pride which in our first interviews had been so repulsive, but a soft melancholy, which sits well enough on some people, but was in her more likely to move mirth than pity: she seldom spoke to me; but when she did, it was with the air of one whose just indignation was conquered by softer sentiments. I knew I never could deserve those sentiments from her, and therefore was very sorry to see them, even though certain they were feigned.
But it was here only I could hope to gain any information of the woman, Hannah Biscoe, who pretended to have lived with my mother near twenty years since. Lady Castlenorth evaded, with wonderful art, ever giving me any trace

of this circumstance, and of her daughter I knew it was in vain to enquire; but there was a little smart Italian girl, called Justina, who had attended on Miss Fitz-Hayman for some time, and who had been in England with her, and I took occasion, as often as I could see her, to say some obliging thing to her, and sometimes to make her a trifling present. Justina, in consequence of my taking so much notice of her, began officiously to put herself in my way; and I believe her vanity prompted her for some time to suppose I had very different motives for my attention than those with which I was really actuated.
But in a foreign woman of that rank even vanity usually yields to avarice. When I had obtained an opportunity of clearly explaining myself, Justina undertook to procure me a direction to the woman whom I was so solicitous to find. She produced it in about a week, but artfully evaded my question as to

how she came by it. I sent off my own servant instantly with it, determined to follow him myself if the information as to her place of abode proved to be true. I received an account from him that a few days before his arrival at the house in Suffolk, where she was said to live, she had removed from thence, and the people either did not know or would not tell whither she was gone.
This seemed so like an artifice of Lady Castlenorth's to prevent my making the enquiry which she knew I had so long and so earnestly desired, that I could now no longer doubt but that Justina had betrayed me: but during this disquieting suspense time wore away, and you, Celestina—what did you, what could you think of me?
I entertained the strongest hopes, that since Lady Castlenorth so industriously kept me from the person she had herself produced as likely to give me
