Alas, Murden, I am sick of the scenes that surround me! formerly, we were moderate and retired to what we are now. Our house is the palace of luxury. Every varying effort of novelty is exerted to fill the vacant mind with pleasure. Useless are my remonstrances. Eastern magnificence and eastern voluptuousness here hold their court, and my mother, borrowing from her splendor every other pretension to charm, plunges deeper and deeper in the vortex of vanity. Fain would I leave it all, but I dare not proscribe my little power of doing good.----Come then, my friends, you who have already taken your station in my heart!--Murden and Sibella--live for each other--live that I may sometimes quit the drudgery of dissipation to participate of happiness with you! If it really was Mr. Valmont's design (which I very much doubt) to give Clement up to a profession, nothing could be more unfortunate than his introduction here--where, with his natural inclination to do the same, he sees wealth lavished without check or restraint. So highly does he stand in my mother's opinion for taste, and so animated are his bursts of applause, that no overstrained variety is received or rejected without his sanction.--To be the confidante of a heart is a novelty with Mrs. Ashburn, who has had little concern in affairs of the heart; and perhaps to preserve him from sacrificing in her presence to the vanity of others may be her motive for encouraging him to speak of his passion for Sibella.--I have watched him narrowly; and, if he has any lurking wishes here, I am persuaded they fix on Mademoiselle Laundy. I believe you never saw this companion of Mrs. Ashburn. She, or I greatly mistake, has of all persons I know most command over herself. I had almost forgotten to tell you that Clement read me a few concluding lines of your last letter to him. What a decided melancholy have you displayed therein!--No, my dear friend, you must not, shall not die.--Clement was considerably affected by the representation of your feelings; yet he said you had used him ill in the foregoing part, and he believed he should never write to you again.--I find he has no suspicions of you; and I leave you to tell him at your own time, and in your own way.