"I left you in a place, furnished, as I thought, with every thing necessary for your satisfaction; but I find I was mistaken in your constitution, and that there was something wanting, which, rather than not possess, you must have recourse to a prison to procure:--ungrateful as you are to the affection I have treated you with, I am sorry for your ill conduct, and could with you had been, at least, more private in your amours: few men but would have sent an order for removing you and the persons, for whose sake you have made these false steps, into a place where you would have cause to curse the fatal inclination that seduced you: think therefore how much you owe a prince, who, instead of punishing your faults, contents himself with letting you know he is not ignorant of them.--If you make a right use of the lenity I shew on this occasion, you may perhaps retrieve some part of the influence you once had over me; but see the Swedish prisoners no more, if you hope or desire ever to see MENZIKOFF." Mattakesa affected the greatest astonishment on having read this letter; and after having cursed the persons that put such vile suspicions into the prince's head, asked her what she intended to do. What can I do! answered the sorrowful Edella, but write to my lord all the assurances that words, can give him, which heaven knows I can truly do, that I never wronged him even in wish or thought; and that since there are people so cruel to misinterpret to my dishonour, what was nothing but mere charity, to obey his commands with the utmost punctuality, and never set my foot into that prison more? Her false friend could not but applaud her resolution, yet told her it was pity that ill tongues should deprive those unfortunate gentlemen of the relief she had hitherto afforded them, or herself of the pleasure she took in their conversation. As for the first, said Edella, heaven may perhaps raise the mother friends more capable of lifting them; and as to the other, were it infinitely greater, it would be my inclination, as it is my duty, to sacrifice every thing to the will of a prince whom I love, and to whom I am so much obliged. Mattakesa having thus compared her design, so far as to be under no apprehensions of being interrupted by her imagined rival, tho' she had rather she had been poisoned or strangled, went directly to the prison and told the gentlemen, it was with the utmost concern she must acquaint them that Edella would never visit them any more, nor continue the weekly pension she had hitherto allowed them.