remorse, and (I feel the
burning blush of shame die my cheeks while I write it) tortured with the
pangs of disappointed love; cut to the soul by the indifference of him,
who, having deprived me of every other comfort, no longer thinks it
worth his while to sooth the heart where he has planted the thorn of
never-ceasing regret. My daily employment is to think of you and weep,
to pray for your happiness and deplore my own folly: my nights are
scarce more happy, for if by chance I close my weary eyes, and hope
some small forgetfulness of sorrow, some little time to pass in sweet
oblivion, fancy, still waking, wafts me home to you: I see your beloved
forms, I kneel and hear the blessed words of peace and pardon. Extatic
joy pervades my soul; I reach my arms to catch your dear embraces; the
motion chases the illusive dream; I wake to real misery. At other times
I see my father angry and frowning, point to horrid caves, where, on the
cold damp ground, in the agonies of death, I see my dear mother and my
revered grand-father. I strive to raise you; you push me from you, and
shrieking cry--'Charlotte, thou hast murdered me!' Horror and despair
tear every tortured nerve; I start, and leave my restless bed, weary and
unrefreshed.

"Shocking as these reflexions are, I have yet one more dreadful than the
rest. Mother, my dear mother! do not let me quite break your heart when
I tell you, in a few months I shall bring into the world an innocent
witness of my guilt. Oh my bleeding heart, I shall bring a poor little
helpless creature, heir to infamy and shame.

"This alone has urged me once more to address you, to interest you in
behalf of this poor unborn, and beg you to extend your protection to the
child of your lost Charlotte; for my own part I have wrote so often, so
frequently have pleaded for forgiveness, and entreated to be received
once more beneath the paternal roof, that having received no answer, not
even one line, I much fear you have cast me from you for ever.

"But sure you cannot refuse to protect my innocent infant: it partakes
not of its mother's guilt. Oh my father, oh beloved mother, now do I
feel the anguish I inflicted on your hearts recoiling with double force
upon my own.

"If my child should be a girl (which heaven forbid) tell her the unhappy
fate of her mother, and teach her to avoid my errors; if a boy, teach
him to lament my miseries, but tell him not who inflicted them, lest in
wishing to revenge his