in with him to the other two gentlemen; where, I suppose, every thing that had passed was repeated.

After a while, I was desired by Colonel Martin, in the name of the gentlemen, to walk in; he himself sitting down in the public room.

They received me with respect. I was obliged to hear and say a great many things that I had said and heard before: but at last two proposals were made me; either of which, they said, if complied with, would be taken as laying the captain under a very high obligation.

Poor man! I had compassion for him, and closed with one of them; declining the other for a reason which I did not give to them. To say truth, Charlotte, I did not choose to promise my interest in behalf of a man of whose merit I was not assured, had I been able to challenge any, as perhaps I might by Lord W.'s means, who stands well with proper persons. A man ought to think himself, in some measure, accountable for warm recommendations, especially where the public is concerned; and could I give my promise, and be cool as to the performance? And I should think myself also answerable to a worthy man, and to every one connected with him, if I were a means of lifting one less worthy over his head. I chose therefore to do that service to him for which I am responsible only to myself. After I have said this, my sister must ask me no questions.

I gave a rough drauglit, at the captain's request, of the manner in which I would have releases drawn. Colonel Martin was desired to walk in. And all the gentlemen promised to bury in silence all that had ever come to their knowledge of what had passed between Charlotte Grandison and Cap. tain Anderson.

'Let not the mentioning to you these measures hurt you, my sister. Many young ladies of sense and family have been drawn in to still greater inconveniences than you have suffered. Persons of eminent abilities (I have a very high opinion of my Charlotte's) seldom err in small points. Most young women, who begin a correspondence with our designing sex, think they can stop when they will. But it is not so. We, and the dark spirit that sets us at work, which we sometimes miscall love, will not permit you to do so. Men and women are devils to one another. They need no other temp

ter.

All will be completed to-morrow; and your written promise, of consequence, given up. I congratulate my sister on the happy conclusion of this affair. You are now your own mistress, and free to choose for yourself. I should never forgive myself, were I, who have been the means of freeing you from one control, to endeavour to lay you under another. Think not either of Sir Walter or of Lord G. if your heart declare not in favour of either. You have sometimes thought me nest in behalf of Lord G. But I have never spoken in his favour but when you have put me upon answering objections to him, which I have thought insufficient: and indeed, Charlotte, some of your objections have been so slight, that I was ready to believe you put them for the pleasure of having them answered.

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ear

My Charlotte need not doubt of admirers wherever she sets her foot. And I repeat, that whoever be the man she inclines to favour, she may depend upon the approbation and good offices of her ever affectionate brother,

'CHARLES GRANDISON,'

LETTER XXXIV.

MISS HARRIET BYRON TO MISS SELBY.

Friday, March 17. I SEND you inclosed (to be returned by the first opportunity) Sir Charles's letter to his sister, acquainting her with the happy conclusion of the affair between Captain Anderson and her. Her brother, as you will see, acquits her not of precipitation. If he did, it would have been an impeachment of his justice. O the dear Charlotte! how her pride is piqued at the meanness of the man!— But no more of this subject, as the letter is before you.

And now, my dear and honoured friends, let me return you a thousand thanks for the great pacquet of my letters just sent me, with a most indulgent one from my aunt, and another from my uncle.

I have already put into the two ladies hands, and my lord's, without reserve, all the letters that reach to the masquerade affair, from the time of my setting out for London; and when they have read those I have promised them more. This confidence has greatly obliged them; and they are employed, with no small earnestness, in perusing them.

This gives me an opportunity of pursuing my own devices. And what, besides scribbling, do you think one of them is?—A kind of persecution of Dr. Bartlett; by which, however, I suspect, that I myself am the greatest sufferer. He is an excellent man and I make no difficulty of going to him in his closet; encouraged by his assurances of welcome.

Let me stop to say. my Lucy, that when I approach this good man in his retirement; surrounded by his books, his table generally covered with those on pious subjects, I, in my heart, congratulate the saint, and inheritor of future glory: and, in that great view, am the more desirous to cultivate his friendship.

And what do you think is our subject? Sir Char les, I suppose, you guess-And so it is, either in the middle or latter end of the few conversations we have yet had time to hold: but, I do assure you, we begin with the sublimest; though I must say, to my shame, that it has not so much of my heart at present as once it had, and I hope again will one day have.-The great and glorious truths of Christianity are this subject; which yet, from this good Dr. Bartlett, warms my heart as often as he enters into it. But this very subject, sublime as it is, brings on the other, as of consequence: for Sir Charles Grandison, without making an ostentatious pretension to religion, is the very Christian in practice, that these doctrines teach a man to be. Must not then the doctrines introduce the mention of a man who endeavours humbly to imitate the divine example? It was upon good grounds he once said, That as he must one day die, it was matter of no moment to him whether it were to-morrow or forty years hence.

The ladies had referred me to the doctor himself for a more satisfactory account than they had given me, how Sir Charles and he first came acquainted. I told him so, and asked his indulgence to me in this inquiry.

He took it kindly. He had, he said, the history of it written down. His nephew, whom he often employs as his amanuensis, should make me out, from that little history, an account of it, which I

might show, he was pleased to say, to such of my select friends as I entrusted with the knowledge of my own heart.

I shall impatiently expect the abstract of this little history; and the more, as the doctor tells me there will be included some particulars of Sir Charles's behaviour abroad in his younger life, and of Mr. Beauchamp, whom the doctor speaks of with love, as his patron's dearest friend, and whom he calls a second Sir Charles Grandison.

See, my Lucy, the reward of frankness of heart. My communicativeness has been already encouraged with the perusal of two letters from the same excellent man to Doctor Bartlett; to whom, from early days, (as I shall be soon more particularly informed) he has given an account of all his conduct and movements..

The doctor drew himself in, however, by reading to Lord L. and the ladies, and me, a paragraph or two out of one of them: and he has even allowed me to give my grandmamma and aunt a sight of them. Return them, Lucy, with the other letter, by the very next post. He says, he can deny me nothing. I wish I may not be too bold with him. -As for Miss Grandison, she vows, that she will not let the good man rest till she gets him to communicate what he shall not absolutely declare to be a secret, to us three sisters, and my Lord L. 'If the first man,' she says, 'could not resist one woman, how will the doctor deal with three, not one of them behind hand with the first in curiosity? And all loving him, and whom he professes to esteem?' You see, Lucy, that Miss Grandison has pretty well got up her spirits again.

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Just now Miss Grandison has related to me a