“It is not worth your reading,” said he; “but I know you too well to fear that it should give you any pain; and I hope you know me too well, to apprehend that it could make any impression on my mind.” Belinda read with some surprise:-- “Rash young man! beware of connecting yourself with the lady to whom you have lately been drawn in to pay your addresses: she is the most artful of women. She has been educated, as you may find upon inquiry, by one, whose successful trade it has been to draw in young men of fortune for her nieces, whence she has obtained the appellation of _the match-maker general_. The only niece whom she could not get rid of any other way, she sent to the most dissipated and unprincipled viscountess in town. The viscountess fell sick, and, as it was universally reported last winter, the young lady was immediately, upon her friend’s death, to have been married to the viscount widower. But the viscountess detected the connexion, and the young lady, to escape from her friend’s rage, and from public shame, was obliged to retreat to certain shades in the neighbourhood of Harrowgate; where she passed herself for a saint upon those who were too honourable themselves to be suspicious of others. “At length the quarrel between her and the viscountess was made up, by her address and boldness in declaring, that if she was not recalled, she would divulge some secrets respecting a certain mysterious boudoir in her ladyship’s house: this threat terrified the viscountess, who sent off express for her late discarded humble companion. The quarrel was hushed up, and the young lady is now with her noble friend at Twickenham. The person who used to be let up the private stairs into the boudoir, by Mrs. Marriott, is now more conveniently received at Twickenham.” Much more was said by the letter-writer in the same strain. The name of Clarence Hervey, in the last page, caught Belinda’s eye; and with a trepidation which she did not feel at the beginning of this epistle, she read the conclusion. “The viscount is not supposed to have been unrivalled in the young lady’s favour. A young gentleman, of large fortune, great talents, and uncommon powers of pleasing, has, for some months, been her secret object; but he has been prudent enough to escape her matrimonial snares, though he carries on a correspondence with her, through the means of her friend the viscountess, to whom he privately writes. The noble lady has bargained to make over to her confidante all her interest in Hervey’s heart. He is expected every day to return from his tour; and, if the schemes upon him can be brought to bear, the promised return to the neighbourhood of Harrowgate will never be thought of. Mr. Vincent will be left in the lurch; he will not even have the lady’s fair hand--her _fair_ heart is Clarence Hervey’s, at all events. Further particulars shall be communicated to Mr. Vincent, if he pays due attention to this warning from “A SINCERE FRIEND.”