Rachel Cowley that is preparing to set out for Heathcot; and I must weep, and envy. I will not go to the Abbey to-morrow: what have I to do with trunks and band-boxes destined for your abode! No, I will not go near them! Pity me, my dear Lucy! Tell me that your good uncle has produced some change in your father's inflexible resolutions. Mr. Freeman is a wise man, although he loves my poor Horace so tenderly. Surely he might convince Mr. Hardcastle without invading on the prerogatives of the immortal Newton, that no material injury would be done to the planetary system by our writing to each other! He might go farther, and safely predict, that our marriage would not hasten a single comet. No extraordinary thunders would announce to the world, that happiness had triumphed over cent. per cent. and over certain scruples, unheard of by multitudes, and which multitudes would laugh at. Urge him to try his utmost eloquence in favour of an union of pure and unmixed affection. Can there exist a reason for the cruel separation to which we are doomed? I have no father to offend now; none to implore, but Mr. Hardcastle! Pity your Rachel Cowley! LETTER XXII. _From the same to the same._ You bid me hope for every thing that can relieve my spirits from their present oppression; and again you repeat, that Horace cannot have a better advocate than his uncle; yet, my Lucy, I am as weak as an infant. Why am I not permitted to accompany Captain Flint and Mary to Heathcot? I would return to my captivity with patience, could I but see _this Mr. Freeman_; it would satisfy me: no one here would oppose my journey. Oh! that cruel and too firm spirit may be trusted. Mr. Flamall's ward will not be seduced,--will not be inveigled by Mr. Hardcastle--his son is nothing to him! Malcolm gave me last night a note from Mary, "believing that Miss Cowley can effect _every thing_." _So it appears._ She and the captain intreat her to employ her influence with Sir Murdock and Lady Maclairn to favour them with a visit at the Abbey; or to permit Mary to pay her respects at the hall before her departure. Unwilling to disturb the baronet, or to distress his lady, I mentioned Mary's note to her only. She requested me to assure Miss Howard that she sincerely participated with her best friends, in the satisfaction they felt, on the subject of her absence. "Her removal from Mrs. Wilson's," added she, "will do more, I trust, than the captain thinks, towards conciliating her aunt's mind; but independently of this consideration, the advantages she will derive from her situation with Miss Hardcastle, are obvious; and I rejoice at her good fortune. It grieves me to refuse Captain Flint's invitation," continued she; "but the implacable animosity which his sister entertains for the whole family at the Abbey, has been hurtful to Mary's interest. I cannot, without injury to that interest, and exasperating Miss Flint, lose sight of the neutrality I have hitherto maintained.