I thank you, my beloved Cecilia, for your cordial wish. Your opinion, that all my troubles are at an end, is consonant to your desires, but I doubt far from the real fact. The young lord V---- is returned home; but oh! how unlike that honest man, whose title and fortune he inherits! How deceived were his worthy parents in their hopes of him! he is a stranger to every sentiment of virtue. I have had a letter this day from my lady V----, wherein she laments the degeneracy of her son, whom they were made to believe a pattern of excellence: but the tutor to whom they entrusted him was as profligate as himself. In short, she says he is quite a reprobate; she has not the least authority or influence over him; she laments this, particularly on our account; we are indebted to him near five thousand pounds, and my lady says, she fears he will press Mr Arnold. He is profuse, she says, in his expences, without being generous. What can we do my dear? There is not the least prospect now of our being able to pay this money, but by selling the only remaining stake we have left. Had my lord lived, he made us hope that by his interest he could procure Mr Arnold some employment which would have enabled him to discharge this debt at his ease, without our being obliged to strip ourselves of our all. As we purposed living with the utmost oeconomy, this might have been accomplished in a few years. This prospect is now lost to us. We must submit. I have begged of Mr Arnold to think immediately of selling my jointure, for we have no reason to expect any lenity from a man of such a character as the present lord V---- is. We can subsist upon the income, which my mother is so good as to allow us: it is precarious it is true, but something may happen; I rely on that providence, who has hitherto protected me. _April 28_ Lady V----'s apprehensions were but too well founded. We have had a letter from her son's agent. The debt _must_ be paid; and we are come to a resolution to sell two hundred and fifty pounds a year. We shall then have but fifty pounds a year in the world which we can call our own! I reckon not upon my mother's life, these afflictions I fear will hasten her departure to another world. From Sir George we have nothing to expect: he is absorbed in vanity; his new alliances engross him intirely.