The lady, after I had withdrawn, attempted to read the letters I had brought her.  But she could read but a little way in one of them, and had great emotions upon it.

She told the woman she would take a speedy opportunity to acknowledge her civilities and her husband’s, and to satisfy the apothecary, who might send her his bill to her lodgings.

She gave the maid something; probably the only half-guinea she had:  and then with difficulty, her limbs trembling under her, and supported by Mrs. Rowland, got down stairs.

I offered my arm:  she was pleased to lean upon it.  I doubt, Sir, said she, as she moved, I have behaved rudely to you:  but, if you knew all, you would forgive me.

I know enough, Madam, to convince me, that there is not such purity and honour in any woman upon earth; nor any one that has been so barbarously treated.

She looked at me very earnestly.  What she thought, I cannot say; but, in general, I never saw so much soul in a woman’s eyes as in her’s.

I ordered my servant, (whose mourning made him less observable as such, and who had not been in the lady’s eye,) to keep the chair in view; and to bring me word, how she did, when set down.  The fellow had the thought to step into the shop, just before the chair entered it, under pretence of buying snuff; and so enabled himself to give me an account, that she was received with great joy by the good woman of the house; who told her, she was but just come in; and was preparing to attend her in High Holborn.—­O Mrs. Smith, said she, as soon as she saw her, did you not think I was run away?—­You don’t know what I have suffered since I saw you.  I have been in a prison!——­Arrested for debts I owe not!—­But, thank God, I am here!—­Will your maid—­I have forgot her name already——­

Catharine, Madam——­

Will you let Catharine assist me to bed?—­I have not had my clothes off since Thursday night.

What she further said the fellow heard not, she leaning upon the maid, and going up stairs.

But dost thou not observe, what a strange, what an uncommon openness of heart reigns in this lady?  She had been in a prison, she said, before a stranger in the shop, and before the maid-servant:  and so, probably, she would have said, had there been twenty people in the shop.

The disgrace she cannot hide from herself, as she says in her letter to Lady Betty, she is not solicitous to conceal from the world!

But this makes it evident to me, that she is resolved to keep no terms with thee.  And yet to be able to put up such a prayer for thee, as she did in her prison; [I will often mention the prison-room, to tease thee!] Does this not show, that revenge has very little sway in her mind; though she can retain so much proper resentment?

And this is another excellence in this admirable woman’s character:  for whom, before her, have we met with in the whole sex, or in ours either, that knew how, in practice, to distinguish between revenge and resentment, for base and ungrateful treatment?