“Then her attention to my daughter! disinterested, too, as I thought!--But, good Heavens, what an idiot I have been! She looks forward to be the step-mother of Helena; she would win the simple child’s affections even before my face, and show Lord Delacour what a charming wife and mother she would make! He said some such thing to me, as well as I remember, the other day. Then her extreme prudence! She never coquets, not she, with any of the young men who come here on purpose to see her. Is this natural? Absolutely unnatural--artifice! artifice! To contrast herself with me in Lord Delacour’s opinion is certainly her object. Even to Clarence Hervey, with whom she was, or pretended to be, smitten, how cold and reserved she is grown of late; and how haughtily she rejected my advice, when I hinted that she was not taking the way to win him! I could not comprehend her; she had no designs on Clarence Hervey, she assured me. Immaculate purity! I believe you. “Then her refusal of Sir Philip Baddely!--a baronet with fifteen thousand a year to be refused by a girl who has nothing, and merely because he is a fool! How could I be such a fool as to believe it? Worthy niece of Mrs. Stanhope, I know you now! And now I recollect that extraordinary letter of Mrs. Stanhope’s which I snatched out of Miss Portman’s hands some months ago, full of blanks, and inuendoes, and references to some letter which Belinda had written about my disputes with my husband! From that moment to this, Miss Portman has never let me see another of her aunt’s letters. So I may conclude they are all in the same style; and I make no doubt that she has instructed her niece, all this time, how to proceed. Now I know why she always puts Mrs. Stanhope’s letters into her pocket the moment she receives them, and never opens them in my presence. And I have been laying open my whole heart, telling my whole history, confessing all my faults and follies, to this girl! And I have told her that I am dying! I have taught her to look forward with joy and certainty to the coronet, on which she has fixed her heart. “On my knees I conjured her to stay with me to receive my last breath. Oh, dupe, miserable dupe, that I am! could nothing warn me? In the moment that I discovered the treachery of one friend, I went and prostrated myself to the artifices of another--of another a thousand times more dangerous--ten thousand times more beloved! For what was Harriot Freke in comparison with Belinda Portman? Harriot Freke, even whilst she diverted me most, I half despised. But Belinda!--Oh, Belinda! how entirely have I loved--trusted--admired--adored--respected--revered you!”