partly to the heat of the place, and
partly to my extreme sensibility; and, hypocrite all over, I encouraged
both opinions--anything but discovery! Luckily, _he_ was not there. But
the incident has more alarms. I am obliged to meet your great man often;
and he seldom sees me without talking of E. D. and J. D., and R. B. and
D. D., as persons in whom my amiable sensibility is interested. My
amiable sensibility!!!--And then the cruel tone of light indifference
with which persons in the fashionable world speak together on the most
affecting subjects! To hear my guilt, my folly, my agony, the foibles and
weaknesses of my friends--even your heroic exertions, Jeanie, spoken of
in the drolling style which is the present tone in fashionable
life--Scarce all that I formerly endured is equal to this state of
irritation--then it was blows and stabs--now it is pricking to death
with needles and pins.--He--I mean the D.--goes down next month to spend
the shooting-season in Scotland--he says, he makes a point of always
dining one day at the Manse--be on your guard, and do not betray
yourself, should he mention me--Yourself, alas! _you_ have nothing to
betray--nothing to fear; you, the pure, the virtuous, the heroine of
unstained faith, unblemished purity, what can you have to fear from the
world or its proudest minions? It is E. whose life is once more in your
hands--it is E. whom you are to save from being plucked of her borrowed
plumes, discovered, branded, and trodden down, first by him, perhaps,
who has raised her to this dizzy pinnacle!--The enclosure will reach you
twice a-year--do not refuse it--it is out of my own allowance, and may
be twice as much when you want it. With you it may do good--with me it
never can.

"Write to me soon, Jeanie, or I shall remain in the agonising
apprehension that this has fallen into wrong hands--Address simply to L.
S., under cover, to the Reverend George Whiterose, in the Minster-Close,
York. He thinks I correspond with some of my noble Jacobite relations who
are in Scotland. How high-church and jacobitical zeal would burn in his
checks, if he knew he was the agent, not of Euphemia Setoun, of the
honourable house of Winton, but of E. D., daughter of a Cameronian
cowfeeder!--Jeanie, I can laugh yet sometimes--but God protect you from
such mirth.--My father--I mean your father, would say it was like the
idle crackling of thorns; but the thorns keep their poignancy, they
remain unconsumed. Farewel