“I hope she, by her duty and obligingness, will do all in her little power to make you amends, and never give you cause to repent of this your unexampled kindness to her and to me.  She cannot, I hope (except her mother’s crime has had an influence upon her, too much like that of an original stain), be of a sordid, or an ungrateful nature.  And, O my poor Sally! if you are, and if ever you fail in your duty to your new mamma, to whose care and authority I transfer my whole right in you, remember that you have no more a mamma in me, nor can you be entitled to my blessing, or my prayers, which I make now, on that only condition, your implicit obedience to all your new mamma’s commands and directions.

“You may have the curiosity, Madam, to wish to know how I live:  for no doubt you have heard all my sad, sad story!—­Know, then, that I am as happy, as a poor creature can be, who has once so deplorably, so inexcusably fallen.  I have a worthy gentleman for my husband, who married me as a widow, whose only child by my former was the care of her papa’s friends, particularly of good Lacy Davers and her brother.  Poor unhappy I! to be under such a sad necessity to disguise the truth!—­Mr. Wrightson (whose name I am unworthily honoured by) has often entreated me to send for the poor child, and to let her be joined as his—­killing thought, that it cannot be!—­with two children I have by him!—­Judge, my good lady, how that very generosity, which, had I been guiltless, would have added to my joys, must wound me deeper than even ungenerous or unkind usage from him could do! and how heavy that crime must lie upon me, which turns my very pleasures to misery, and fixes all the joy I can know, in repentance for my past misdeeds!—­How happy are YOU, Madam, on the contrary; YOU, who have nothing of this sort to pall, nothing to mingle with your felicities! who, blessed in an honour untainted, and a conscience that cannot reproach you, are enabled to enjoy every well deserved comfort, as it offers itself; and can improve it too, by reflection on your past conduct!  While mine, alas! like a winter frost, nips in the bud every rising satisfaction.

“My husband is rich as well as generous, and very tender of me—­Happy, if I could think myself as deserving as he thinks me!—­My principal comfort, as I hinted, is in my penitence for my past faults; and that I have a merciful God for my judge, who knows that penitence to be sincere!

“You may guess, Madam, from what I have said, in what light I must appear here; and if you would favour me with a line or two, in answer to the letter you have now in your hand, it will be one of the greatest pleasures I_ can_ receive:  a pleasure next to that which I have received in knowing, that the gentleman you love best, has had the grace to repent of all his evils; has early seen his errors; and has thereby, I hope, freed_ two_ persons from being, one day, mutual accusers of each other; for now I please myself to think, that the crimes of both may be washed away in the blood of that Saviour God, whom both have so grievously offended!