to me for my kindness to her mamma.
Though I reflect with sincere pleasure on having been able to rescue this amiable woman from a scene of the severest distress, yet I cannot help feeling an anxiety for her future fate, which gives

me extreme pain—She cannot long remain where she is, undiscovered, and no one can tell what step that barbarian, her husband, may take to distress her yet farther—My apprehensions are, that he will force Olivia from her; and the loss of her child would, I am certain, occasion the loss of her life.
But supposing that he should never discover her retreat, or even inquire about her, I see no asylum, except a convent, where her youth and beauty will not subject her to a thousand misfortunes.—You are sufficiently acquainted •ith my sentiments on the subject of monasteries, to know how very unwilling I should be to recommend a state of seclusion to any creature I either love or esteem; yet, in her unhappy situation,

I see no other resource—However, I shall not advise precipitately.
Not but that I should approve extremely of an establishment of this kind, in our own country, under our own religion and laws; both equally free from tyranny—An asylum for unhappy women to retreat to—not from the world, but from the misfortunes, or the slander of it—for female orphans, young widows, or still more unhappy objects, forsaken, or ill treated wives, to betake themselves to, in such distresses. For in all these circumstances, women who live alone, have need of something more than either prudence or a fair character, to guard them from rudeness or censure.
Now some sort of foundation, under the government of a respectable matronage,

endowed for such a purpose, would certainly be an institution most devoutly to be wished for, as a relief in the difficulties of those situations I have just mentioned. Here women might enjoy all the pleasures and advantages of living still in the world, have their conduct reciprocally vouched by one another, and be screened from those artful and insidious essays, which young or pretty women, when once become helpless adjectives of society, are generally liable to.
I have had a letter from Sir William, and for once he seems pleased with my determination of staying in the country. This has made me very happy—tho' had he commanded my attendance in Dublin, I would have obeyed; for I will at least endeavour to deserve the character

which the offended Moor gives of the gentle Desdemona—
"As you say, obedient,—very obedient!"
—and, as I have already told my Fanny, that is