hope, Lucy, it is only to a jealous eye that my heart is so
discoverable!--I thank her for her caution. But I can say what she
cannot; that from my heart, cost me what it may, I do subscribe to a
preference in favour of a lady, who has acted, in the most arduous
trials, in a greater manner than I fear either Olivia or I could have
acted, in the same circumstances. We see that her reason, but not her
piety, deserted her in the noble struggle between her love and her
religion. In the most affecting absences of her reason, the soul of the
man she loved was the object of her passion. However hard it is to
prefer another to one's self, in such a case as this; yet if my judgment
is convinced, my acknowledgment shall follow it. Heaven will enable me
to be reconciled to the event, because I pursue the dictates of that
judgment, against the biases of my more partial heart. Let that Heaven,
which only can, restore Clementina, and dispose as it pleases of Olivia
and Harriet. We cannot either of us, I humbly hope, be so unhappy as the
lady has been whom I rank among the first of women; and whose whole
family deserves almost equal compassion.

Lady Olivia asked Lady L----, if her brother had not a very tender regard
for me? He had, Lady L---- answered; and told her, that he had rescued
me from a very great distress; and that mine was the most grateful of
human hearts.

She called me sweet young creature; (supposing me, I doubt not, younger
than I am;) but said, that the graces of my person and mind alarmed her
not, as they would have done, had not his attachment to Clementina been
what now she saw, but never could have believed it was; having supposed,
that compassion only was the tie that bound him to her.

But compassion, Lucy, from such a heart as his, the merit so great in the
lady, must be love; a love of the nobler kind--And if it were not, it
would be unworthy of Clementina's.

Lady Maffei called upon her dignity, her birth, to carry her above a
passion that met not with a grateful return. She advised her to dispose
herself to stay in England some months, now she was here. And as her
friends in Italy would suppose what her view was in coming to England,
their censures would be obviated by her continuing here for some time,
while Sir Charles was abroad, and in Italy: and that she should divert
herself with visiting the court, the public places, and in seeing the
principal curiosities of this kingdom, as she had done those