tigers are slain, and armies routed, by the puissance of his single arm.

Now, do not these reveries convince you, that I owe all my uneasiness to what I suffered from Sir Hargrave's barbarity? I think I must take my aunt's advice; leave London; and then I shall better find out, whether, as all my friends suspect, and as, to be ingenuous, I myself now begin sometimes to fear, a passion stronger than gratitude has not taken hold of my heart. Of this I am sure; my reasoning faculties are weakened. that, in my illness at Colnebrook, I was delirious; and that the doctor they called in was afraid of my head: and should I suffer myself to be entangled in a hopeless passion, there will want no further proof, that my reason has suffered.]

Miss Grandison says,

Adieu, my Lucy! What a letter have I written! The conclusion of it, I doubt, will, of itself, be a sufficient evidence of the weakness I have mentioned, both of head and heart, of your HARRIET.

On perusal of the latter part of this letter, [which I have enclosed in hooks,] if you can avoid it, Lucy, read it not before my uncle.

LETTER VI.

MISS HARRIET BYRON, TO MISS LUCY SELBY.

Saturday, March 4.

THIS morning Sir Hargrave Pollexfen made Mr. Reeves a visit. He said it was to him; but I was unluckily below;

and forced to hear all he had to say, or to appear unpolite.

He proposed visiting my grandmamma, and aunt Selby, in order to implore their forgiveness. But Mr. Reeves diverted him from thinking of that.

woman.

He had not sought me, he said, at Lady Betty Williams's, but from his desire, (on the character he had heard of me,) to pay his addresses to me in preference to every other He had laid out for several opportunities to get into my company, before he heard I was to dine there. Particularly, he once had resolved to pay a visit in form to my uncle Selby, in Northamptonshire, and had got all his equipage in readiness to set out; but heard that I was come to town with Mr. and Mrs. Reeves. He actually then set out, he said, for Peterborough, with intent to propose the affair to my godfather Deane: but found that he was gone to Cambridge; and then being resolved to try his fate with me, he came to town; and hardly questioned succeeding, when he understood that my friends left me to my own choice and knowing that he could offer such proposals, as none of the gentlemen who had made pretensions to me, were able to make. His intentions, therefore, were not sudden, and such as arose upon what he saw of me at Lady Betty Williams's; though the part I supported in the conversation there, precipitated his declaration.

He was very unhappy, he said, to have so mortally disobliged me; and repeated all his former pleas; his love, [rough love, I am sure,] compassion, sufferings, and I cannot tell what; insisting, that he had forgiven much greater injuries, as was but too apparent.

I told him, that I had suffered more than he could have done, though his hurt was more visible than mine: that, nevertheless, I forgave him; as no bad consequences had

followed between him and my protector-[Protector! muttered he]-But that he knew my mind before he made that barbarous attempt: and I besought him never more to think of me; and he must excuse me to say, that this must be the very last time I ever would see him.

A great deal was said on both sides; my cousins remaining attentively silent all the time and at last he insisted that I would declare, that I never would be the wife either of Mr. Greville or Mr. Fenwick: assuring me, that the rash step he had taken to make me his, was owing principally to his apprehension, that Mr. Greville was more likely to succeed with me than any other man.

But Mr.

I owed him, I told him, no such declaration. Reeves, to get rid of his importunity, gave it as his opinion, that there was no ground for his apprehensions that I would give my hand to either; and I did not contradict him.

Mr. Bagenhall and Mr. Jordan, before I could get away from this importunate man, came to inquire for him. He then owned, that they came in hope of seeing me; and besought me to favour him and them for one quarter of an hour only.

I was resolved to withdraw: but, at Sir Hargrave's command, as impertinently given as officiously obeyed, Mr. Reeves's servant led them (his master indeed not contradicting) into the parlour where we were.

The two strangers behaved with great respect. Never did mén run praises higher, than both these gentlemen gave to Sir Charles Grandison. And indeed the subject made me easier in their company than I should otherwise have been.

It is not possible, I believe, for the vainest mind to hear itself profusely praised, without some pain: but it is surely

one of the sweetest pleasures in the world, to hear a whole company join in applauding the absent person who stands high in our opinion: and especially if he be one to whose unexceptionable goodness we owe, and are not ashamed to own, obligation.

What further pleased me, was to hear Mr. Bagenhall declare, which he did in a very serious manner, that Sir Charles Grandison's great behaviour, as he justly called it, had made such impressions not only upon him, but upon Mr. Merceda, that they were both determined to turn over a new leaf, was his phrase; and to live very different lives from what they had lived; though they were far, they blessed God, from being before the worst of men.

These gentlemen, with Mr. Merceda and Sir Hargrave, are to dine with Sir Charles to-day. They both mentioned it with great pleasure; but Sir Hargrave did not seem so well pleased, and doubted of his being able to persuade himself to go.

The invitation was given at Mr. Jordan's motion, who took hold of a slight invitation of Sir Charles's; Mr. Jordan declaring, that he resolved not to let slip any opportunity of improving an acquaintance with so extraordinary

a man.

Sir Hargrave talked of soon leaving the town, and retiring to one of his country-seats; or of going abroad, for a year or two, if he must have no hopes-Hopes! a wretch!

Yet he shewed so much dejection, and is so really mortified with the damage done to a face that he used to take pleasure to see reflected in the glass, (never once looking into either of those in the parlour he was in, all the time he staid,) that I could once or twice have been concerned for him: but when I seriously reflect, I do not know whe

ther this mortification is not the happiest thing that could have befallen him. It wants only to be attended with patience. He is not now an ugly man in his person. His estate will always give him consequence. He will now think the better of others; and the worse of himself: he may, much worse; and not want as much vanity as comes to his share.

But say you, my uncle, (as I fancy you do,) that I also may spare some of my vanity, and not be the worse girl?— Ah! no! I am now very sensible of my own defects. I am poor, low, silly, weak-Was I ever insolent? Was I ever saucy? Was I ever-O my uncle, hide my faults! I am mortified. Let me not reproach myself with having deserved mortification. If I did, I knew it not. I intended not to be saucy, vain, insolent—And if I was so, lay it to a flow of health, and good spirits; to time of life; young, gay, and priding myself in every one's love; yet most in the love, in the fond indulgence, of all you, my good friends and then you will have some of my faults to lay at your own doors; nor will you, even you, my uncle, be clear of reproach, because your correction was always mingled with so much praise, that I thought you were but at play with your niece, and that you levelled your blame more at the sex than at your Harriet.

BUT what have I written against myself! I believe I am not such a low, silly, weak creature, as I had thought myself. For just as I had laid down my pen with a pensive air, and to look into the state of my own heart, in order either to lighten, or to confirm, the self-blame I had so glibly written down, Lady L―, in her chair, made us a visit. She came up directly to me: I am come to dine with your cousins and you, Miss Byron, said she. Shall I be welcome? But don't answer me. I know I shall.