“Amelia answered with much gravity, ‘If you know, sir, that there is any distance between us, I suppose you know the reason of that distance; and then, I think, I could not have expected to be affronted by her name. I would not have you think, Mr. Booth, that I hate Miss Osborne. No! Heaven is my witness, I despise her too much.--Indeed, when I reflect how much I loved the woman who hath treated me so cruelly, I own it gives me pain--when I lay, as I then imagined, and as all about me believed, on my deathbed, in all the agonies of pain and misery, to become the object of laughter to my dearest friend.--O, Mr. Booth, it is a cruel reflection! and could I after this have expected from you--but why not from you, to whom I am a person entirely indifferent, if such a friend could treat me so barbarously?’ “During the greatest part of this speech the tears streamed from her bright eyes. I could endure it no longer. I caught up the word indifferent, and repeated it, saying, Do you think then, madam, that Miss Emily is indifferent to me? “‘Yes, surely, I do,’ answered she: ‘I know I am; indeed, why should I not be indifferent to you?’ “Have my eyes,” said I, “then declared nothing?” “‘O! there is no need of your eyes’ answered she; ‘your tongue hath declared that you have singled out of all womankind my greatest, I will say, my basest enemy. I own I once thought that character would have been no recommendation to you;--but why did I think so? I was born to deceive myself.’ “I then fell on my knees before her; and, forcing her hand, cried out, O, my Amelia! I can bear no longer. You are the only mistress of my affections; you are the deity I adore. In this stile I ran on for above two or three minutes, what it is impossible to repeat, till a torrent of contending passions, together with the surprize, overpowered her gentle spirits, and she fainted away in my arms. “To describe my sensation till she returned to herself is not in my power.”--“You need not,” cried Miss Matthews.--“Oh, happy Amelia! why had I not been blest with such a passion?”--“I am convinced, madam,” continued he, “you cannot expect all the particulars of the tender scene which ensued. I was not enough in my senses to remember it all. Let it suffice to say, that that behaviour with which Amelia, while ignorant of its motive, had been so much displeased, when she became sensible of that motive, proved the strongest recommendation to her favour, and she was pleased to call it generous.” “Generous!” repeated the lady, “and so it was, almost beyond the reach of humanity. I question whether you ever had an equal.”