For his, for my own, but most for Leonora’s sake, I wish that this cruel suspense were at an end. Adieu, dear and amiable Gabrielle.--These things are managed better in France. OLIVIA. * * * * * LETTER XL. MRS. C---- TO MISS B----. DEAR MARGARET, L---- Castle. I arrived here late yesterday evening in high spirits, and high hopes of surprising and delighting all the world by my unexpected appearance; but my pride was checked, and my tone changed the moment I saw Leonora. Never was any human being so altered in her looks in so short a time. I had just, and but just presence of mind enough not to say so. I am astonished that it does not strike Mr. L----. As soon as she left the room, I asked him if Lady Leonora had been ill? No; perfectly well! perfectly well!--Did not he perceive that she looked extremely ill? No; she might be paler than usual: that was all that Mr. L---- had observed. Lady Olivia, after a pause, added, that Leonora certainly had not appeared well lately, but this was nothing extraordinary in her _situation_. _Situation!_ nonsense! Lady Olivia went on with sentimental hypocrisy of look and tone, saying fine things, to which I paid little attention. Virtue in words, and vice in actions! thought I. People, of certain pretensions in the court of sentiment, think that they can pass false virtues upon the world for real, as some ladies, entitled by their rank to wear jewels, appear in false stones, believing that it will be taken for granted they would wear nothing but diamonds. Not one eye in a hundred detects the difference at first, but in time the hundredth eye comes, and then they must for ever hide their diminished rays. Beware! Lady Olivia, beware! Leonora is ill, or unhappy, or both; but she will not allow that she is either. On one subject she is impenetrable: a hundred, a thousand different ways within these four-and-twenty hours have I led to it, with all the ingenuity and all the delicacy of which I am mistress; but all to no purpose. Neither by provocation, persuasion, laughing, teazing, questioning, cross, or round about, pushing, squeezing, encompassing, taking for granted, wondering, or blundering, could I gain my point. Every look guarded--every syllable measured--yet unequivocal-- “She said no more than just the thing she ought.”