Lord W——­ praised the person of the lady, and her majestic air.  Lord L——­ and Lord G——­ wished to be within hearing of the conference between her and Sir Charles:  so did Lady G——­:  and while they were thus wishing, in came Sir Charles, his face all in a glow; Lady L——­, said he, be so good as to attend Lady Olivia.

She went to her; Sir Charles staid not with us:  yet went not to the lady; but into his study.  Dr. Bartlett attended him there:  the doctor returned soon after to us.  His noble heart is vexed, said he:  Lady Olivia has greatly disturbed him:  he chooses to be alone.

Lady L——­ afterwards told us, that she found the lady in violent anguish of spirit; her aunt endeavouring to calm her:  she, however, politely addressed herself to Lady L——­, and begging her aunt to withdraw for a few moments, she owned to her, in French, her passion for her brother:  She was not, she said, ashamed to own it to his sister, who must know that his merit would dignify the passion of the noblest woman.  She had endeavoured, she said, to conquer hers:  she had been willing to give way to the prior attachments that he had pleaded for a lady of her own country, Signora Clementina della Porretta, whom she allowed to have had great merit; but who, having irrecoverably been put out of her right mind, was shut up at Naples by a brother, who vowed eternal enmity to Sir Charles; and from whom his life would be in the utmost hazard, if he went over.  She owned, that her chief motive for coming to England was, to cast her fortune at her brother’s feet; and, as she knew him to be a man of honour, to comply with any terms he should propose to her.  He had offered to the family della Porretta to allow their daughter her religion, and her confessor, and to live with her every other year in Italy.  She herself, not inferior in birth, in person, in mind, as she said, she presumed, and superior in fortune, the riches of three branches of her family, all rich, having centred in her, insisted not now upon such conditions.  Her aunt, she said, knew not that she proposed, on conviction, a change of her religion; but she was resolved not to conceal anything from Lady L——.  She left her to judge how much she must be affected, when he declared his obligation to leave England; and especially when he owned, that it was to go to Bologna, and that so suddenly, as if, as she apprehended at first, it was to avoid her.  She had been in tears, she said, and even would have kneeled to him, to induce him to suspend his journey for one month, and then to have taken her over with him, and seen her safe in her own palace, if he would go upon so hated, and so fruitless, as well as so hazardous an errand:  but he had denied her this poor favour.

This refusal, she owned, had put her out of all patience.  She was unhappily passionate; but was the most placable of her sex.  What, madam, said she, can affect a woman, if slight, indignity, and repulse, from a favoured person, is not able to do it?  A woman of my condition to come over to England, to solicit—­how can I support the thought—­and to be refused the protection of the man she prefers to all men; and her request to see her safe back again, though but as the fool she came over!—­You may blame me, madam—­but you must pity me, even were you to have a heart the sister heart of your inflexible brother.