she attempted to retreat on seeing the address. "You must take it," said I calmly: "nay, more, Lucretia, you must read the contents in my presence: such are my orders; and before my Maker, have I sworn to fulfil them."--"Give it to some one," cried she, covering her face; "I promise to read it when I am able."--"That will not suffice," replied I, sitting down and bursting into agonizing tears; "I have no apprehensions: a sister's dying blessing cannot injure, a sister's forgiveness cannot wound you." She took the packet, broke the seals, and, hastily glancing her eyes over the two letters it contained, asked me, with rising anger, "whether I was satisfied with having insulted her under her _own roof_?"--"Call it as you please," answered I, sternly; "my business was not to compliment. I leave you with a remedy you need. Profit from it, lest a worse thing befal you than my insults." I instantly left her; and on my sainted Mary's grave wept my feelings down to composure, Time, and my remaining comforts, healed, to a certain degree, these breaches in my peace. I was at length summoned to town with young Heartley, by his friend, to prepare for his voyage to Calcutta. A month was employed in my cares for Heartley's son, and my gratitude had its turn. I saw him embark with all the sanguine hopes of youth, qualified by my care, for an honourable destination; and gifted by nature with every virtuous and noble trait of his father's character. He was under the protection of a man who loved that father, and I contentedly went back to my lodgings in order to prepare for my return home. My demands on my banker had been extended beyond their usual course; and I had to settle my account with his books before my departure. I called at his house, it had stopped payment; and in a week or ten days detention in town I learned, that I might expect for the remaining sum of five hundred pounds in his hands, a dividend of "five shillings in the pound."