, and caution unnecessary; and this fit of illness was not only attended but produced by a dejection of spirits so depressing, that I am astonished I have been able to survive what I have suffered. This last attack was indeed so violent, that my

physicians thought me for several days in extreme danger, and shook their heads in silence, while poor Fanny gave me up for lost.
It has pleased the Almighty, however, to restore me; though I am yet so languid that I scarce feel as if I had existence: but I am infinitely better than I could have conceived possible in so short a space; and the relief Fanny's mind has received from this event, has almost wholly recovered her usual good spirits: her terrors on my account, by dividing her attention and engrossing her anxiety, have abstracted her thoughts from the past, and her escape from a still greater calamity, for such undoubtedly my death must have proved at this juncture, when we are left in a manner deserted and alone, has produced a wonderful change in her dejection. Her timidity of temper, even to helplessness, renders her so dependant on me, and so totally unfits

her for struggling against the difficulties of our unconnected situation, that my loss could be felt at no period so severely as the present.
I have considered some points in her temper, however, as very fortunate at this melancholy season; when to have endured the burthen both of her sorrows and my own, would have proved a weight under which my spirits must have completely sunk; but though exceedingly susceptible of strong agitations in the first moments of emotion, Fanny's feelings, probably from their violence, are extremely apt to evaporate, and when dissolved in tears and melted by affliction, the soothing of a friend, and a few unavailing arguments of comfort, seldom fail to wipe them very speedily away.
The sensations of sixteen, are in general I believe of this nature: acute but transient. I perceive my Sophia smiles at the important airs of seniority which

in this last sentence I seem to assume: but two years difference of age, at our time of life, claims more than will perhaps be admitted at any other period; and Fanny's residence at the convent, from which she returned but a few months ago, and the seclusion that preceded it, have given an inexperienced simplicity to her conversation, and an innocent naivetè to her manners, which, though amiable and engaging, bestow sometimes an appearance of childishness that might lead one to conclude her still younger than she is.
SEPT. 28.
Madam