attend precisely to its effects on the hearer. I am neither angry with, nor surprized at, Miss Burchell, for her scepticism on this occasion. She loves Mr Faulkland, and had not herself the power to resist him: she knows he once loved me, and may fancy he does so still; nay, thinks perhaps I am not indifferent towards him: she is a stranger to _my_ heart; but is convinced, that her aunt is base enough, first to ensnare to vice, and then to betray. Upon the whole, there is nothing unnatural in her suspicions; but I think they could not proceed from a virtuous mind. Upon Miss Burchell's taking leave, my mother gave her a general invitation to come to her as often as she had leisure; telling her, she must not take it amiss if she did not return her visits, as her health would not permit her to go much abroad. Miss Burchell, it seems, has a house (not lodgings) in a retired street in Westminster, where she has been ever since she quitted her aunt, to whom she never discovered where she lived. Her fortune enables her to appear very genteelly in the private manner she chuses to live. She goes but seldom into publick, and has but a narrow circle of acquaintance. Those are all of her own sex, and of the best character; and she has had the good fortune to preserve her reputation unsuspected; so that, I hope, she may yet retrieve her error by an advantageous match, should Mr Faulkland still continue averse to her. _September 28_ I have had a letter from Patty: she tells me, her master is returned home; and adds, 'To be sure, that vile wicked wretch let him know you were gone.' She says, he called for the two dear babes, and kissed them both. Patty carried the youngest to him in her arms, the other in her hand, and she says, he looked troubled. How came you not to follow your lady, Mrs Martha, said he? She replied, My Lady was willing, Sir, that I should stay to look after the children--And to be a spy upon my actions, I suppose: Is that not to be part of your employment too? Ah! Patty, Patty; Mrs Arnold had better have looked to her own conduct. Patty made no answer, but retired in tears. Every one in the house, she writes, is broken-hearted; but that Mr Arnold is never at home, spending his whole time with Mrs Gerrarde, whom the girl, in the overflowings of her zeal for me, heartily execrates. She informed him, that I was gone to London, and purposed living with my mother, who was now there. _October 7_