Is he a man, my dear Eliza, whose friendship you wish to cultivate?  Can that heavenly passion reside in a breast which is the seat of treachery, duplicity, and ingratitude?  You are too sensible of its purity and worth to suppose it possible.  The confessions of his own mouth condemn him.  They convince me that he is still the abandoned libertine, and that marriage is but the cloak of his intrigues.  His officious attentions to you are alarming to your friends.  Your own mind weakened, and peculiarly susceptible of tender impressions, beware how you receive them from him.  Listen not a moment to his flattering professions; it is an insult upon your understanding for him to offer them; it is derogatory to virtue for you to hear them.

Slight not the opinion of the world.  We are dependent beings; and while the smallest traces of virtuous sensibility remain, we must feel the force of that dependence in a greater or less degree.  No female, whose mind is uncorrupted, can be indifferent to reputation.  It is an inestimable jewel, the loss of which can never be repaired.  While retained, it affords conscious peace to our own minds, and insures the esteem and respect of all around us.

Blessed with the company of so disinterested and faithful a friend as Julia Granby, some deference is certainly due to her opinion and advice.  To an enlarged understanding, a cultivated taste, and an extensive knowledge of the world, she unites the most liberal sentiments with a benevolence and candor of disposition, which render her equally deserving of your confidence and affection.

I cannot relinquish my claim to a visit from you this winter.  Marriage has not alienated nor weakened my regard for my friends.  Come, then, to your faithful Lucy.  Have you sorrows?  I will soothe and alleviate them.  Have you cares?  I will dispel them.  Have you pleasures?  I will heighten them.  Come, then, let me fold you to my expecting heart.  My happiness will be partly suspended till your society renders it complete.  Adieu.

LUCY SUMNER.

LETTER LXII.

TO MISS JULIA GRANBY.

HARTFORD.

Dear Julia:  I hope Mrs. Sumner and you will excuse my writing but one letter in answer to the number I have received from you both.  Writing is an employment which suits me not at present.  It was pleasing to me formerly, and therefore, by recalling the idea of circumstances and events which frequently occupied my pen in happier days, it now gives me pain.  Yet I have just written a long consolatory letter to Mrs. Richman.  She has buried, her babe—­her little Harriet, of whom she was dotingly fond.

It was a custom with some of the ancients, we are told, to weep at the birth of their children.  Often should we be impelled to a compliance with this custom, could we foresee the future incidents of their lives.  I think, at least, that the uncertainty of their conduct and condition in more advanced age may reconcile us to their removal to a happier state before they are capable of tasting the bitterness of woe.