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LETTER LIV.

July 29.

H! No; 'tis well-'tis all well.

-Me her hufband! Eternal Power that gave me being, if thou hadft deftined fuch happiness for me, my whole life would have been one continual thanksgiving! But I will not murmur against thee: forgive my tears, forgive my fruitless vows!

She might have been mine; I might have folded in thefe arms all that is lovely under Heaven !→→My whole frame is convulfed when Al-

bert puts his arm round her waift.

Shall I fay it?

And why fhould

E 4

I not

I not fay it ?-She would have been happier with me than with him. Albert was not made for her: he wants a certain fenfibility; he wants -in fhort their hearts do not beat in unifon. Ah! my dear friend, how often in reading an interesting paffage, where my heart and Charlotte's feemed to meet; and when our fentiments were unfolded by the story and fituation of a fictitious character, how often have I feen and felt, that we were made to understand each other? Alas, my friend! -But this worthy man loves her with all his foul; and what does not fuch love deserve ?

I have been interrupted by an infufferable vifit. I have dried up my tears, and my thoughts are a little diffipated. Adieu, my dearest friend.

I

LETTER LV.

Auguft 4.

A M not alone unfortunate; men are all disappointed in their hopes, and all their schemes fall to the ground. I have been to fee the good woman under the lime-trees. The eldest boy ran to meet me; he fcreamed for joy, and that brought out his mother. She looked very

melancholy. “Alas! my good Sir,”

faid

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faid fhe, our poor little Jenny is dead;" (that was the youngest of her children). I answered nothing66 And my husband," she continued, 66 came back from Holland without any money he was taken ill with a fever; and if fome good people had not relieved him, he must have been obliged to beg his bread along the road. I could fay nothing to her: I gave fome money to the boy; and the offered me fome ap ples, which I accepted, and full of forrow left the place.

LETTER

LETTER LVI.

M

Auguft 21.

Y fenfations change with the rapidity of lightning. Sometimes a ray of joy feems to give me new life-Alas! it difappears in a moment. When I am thus loft in neveries, I cannot help faying to myfelf-" If Albert was to die, I fhould be yes, Charlotte would” — and 1 purfué the chimera till it leads me to the edge of a precipice, from which I ftart back and fhudder. When I go out at the fame gate, when I take the fame road which conducted me for the first time towards

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