'Cast thus upon myself, and for a time indefinite, how hardly, and how variously have I existed! But for the dreadful fear of worse, darkly and continually hovering over my head, I could scarcely have summoned courage for my unremitting trials. But whatever I endured was constantly light in comparison with what I had escaped! Yet how was I tried,--Oh Sir Jaspar! how cruelly! in resisting to present myself to my family! in forbearing to pronounce the kind appellation of brother! the soft, tender title of sister! Oh! in their sight, when witnessing their goodness, when blest by their kindness, and urged by the most generous sweetness to confidence, how violent, how indescribable have been my struggles, to withhold from throwing myself into their arms, with the fair, natural openness of sisterly affection! But Lord Denmeath, who disputed, or denied, my relation to their family, was their uncle and guardian. To him to make myself known, would have been to blight every hope of concealment from the commissary, whose claims were precisely in unison with the plan of his lordship, for making me an alien to my country. What, against their joint interests and authority, would be the power of a sister or a brother under age? Often, indeed, I was tempted to trust them in secret; and oh how consolatory to my afflicted heart would have been such a trust! but they had yet no establishment, and they were wards of my declared enemy. How unavailing, therefore, to excite their generous zeal, while necessarily forced to exact that our ties of kindred should remain unacknowledged? Upon their honour I could rely; but by their feelings, their kind, genuine, ardent feelings, I must almost unavoidably have been betrayed. 'To my Gabriella, also, I have forborne to unbosom my sorrows, and reveal my alarms, that I might spare her already so deeply wounded soul, the restless solicitude of fresh and cruel uncertainties. She concludes, that though her letters have miscarried, or been lost, her honoured mother and uncle still reside safely together, in the villa of the Marchioness, in which she had bidden them adieu. And that noble mother charged me to hide, if it should be possible, from her unhappy child, the terrible history in which I had borne so considerable a part, till she could give assurances to us both of her own and the Bishop's safety. Alas! nine months have now worn away since our separation, yet no news arrives!--no Bishop appears!