But no expression of impatience, nor even of suspicion, was so tormenting to me as the abject entreaties for forgiveness, which were reiterated after the most solemn assurances that they were needless. 'For Heaven's sake, Juliet,' I would say to her, 'let this subject be dropped for ever. I beseech you to let me forget that I have any thing to forgive you. If ever you see me fail in kindness, if ever I seem to prefer my own comfort or advantage to yours, then--then remind me that you once did me wrong, that you may rouse me by the strongest of motives to love and benefit you.' But all I could say, did only, at best, impress her with momentary conviction. More frequently her efforts failed to conceal from me that she thought me more capable of inventing Christian sentiments than of feeling them. In the mean time, her feeble frame declined from day to day; yet, while she was thus a prey to groundless apprehensions, the melancholy security, which is so frequent a symptom of her disease, blinded her to the approach of inevitable fate. It was heart-breaking to see her spending her last breath in devising schemes of vanity or revenge; fixing, with suspicious dread, her dying eye upon a fellow-worm, regardless of all that the Creator could threaten or bestow. Often did I resolve to awaken her to her danger; but so profound seemed her security, that my courage was unequal to the task. I did not, indeed, deceive her with the language of hope, but I forbore, explicitly, to express my fears; and with this concealment, so cowardly, so unfriendly, so cruel, I shall never cease to reproach myself. It was, perhaps, for want of this very act of resolution, that I found it impossible to rouse her to any serious examination of her own mind, any alarming impressions of her condition as an accountable creature. Having once settled it that I had been converted to methodism by Miss Mortimer, she was as impenetrable to all that I could urge, as if the name she gave to the speaker could have affected the nature and importance of the truth spoken. My desertion was the sole object of her serious fears; her hopes all centered in her little boy, or rather in the honours which she expected him to attain. She was constantly urging me to find out some lawyer, whom the love of justice, or the hope of future recompense, might induce to undertake her cause. The ruin which her success was to bring upon one whom I had once regarded as an enemy made me unwilling to take any part in Miss Arnold's scheme; and my extreme dislike to asking favours rendered me particularly averse to make the application she desired. At last, weary of my delays, she herself undertook the business. As she was no longer able to walk abroad, the earnings of two entire days were spent in conveying her to and from the chambers of an eminent lawyer; but we forgot our wants and our toils together, when she received a written opinion, that her claims were at least tenable.