, the perfect propriety, nay the duty and humanity of the scheme I propose, and favour me with one propitious line, to alleviate the distress of your eternally grateful and obedient servant,
LINROSE.
JULY 28.
The perusal of this letter has indeed plunged me into a sea of troubles; and on the first reading, I thought only of acceding to Lord Linrose's proposal. I considered nothing but the sad alternative, either of hazarding every inconvenience and yielding at once to his entreaties, or of relinquishing him for ever. I forgot the repugnance of my own heart to a measure so bold and so dangerous, and which recurred with painful force

the instant the perturbation of my mind began to abate. I remembered not the applause which had in my cool moments attended my former refusal, nor the consolation which I had derived from that of my dear and ever respected Lady Aubrey, whose approbation of my conduct is essential to my peace. I considered not the peculiar situation of Lord Linrose; whose rank in the world, and habits of living must, with the best disposition in the world, render him particularly unfit for the circumscribed oeconomy and seclusion of which his own independent fortune would admit. Mr. Howard tells me it does not exceed five or six hundred a year; and to this limited income, which I make no doubt has hardly hitherto served for the little incidental charges of pocket money, Lord Linrose would be forced to submit probably during the life time of Lord Belmont, for as to the hopes of softening

him into forgiveness, even Lady Aubrey, it is easy to perceive, builds little on that circumstance.
Stern and unrelenting when once thoroughly exasperated, it is infinitely more probable, she says, that submission and time may soften him in our favour than that he should ever be prevailed with to pardon an act of open defiance. The very idea that Lord Linrose, from now considering himself as the sole and natural heir of his title and wealth, may with less apprehension dare to brave his displeasure, is a circumstance the most likely to induce him to let his grandson feel the whole weight of his indignation in every way he can devise, and as long as he lives to punish his disobedience.
Some of the most prudent of these considerations you will suspect, Sophia, were not wholly the suggestions of my own mind. At least at first, though my reason could not but entirely acquiesce

with the force, justice, and probability of all those conclusions, the moment they either occurred to myself or were suggested to me by the apprehensive tenderness of my dear Lady Aubrey, that