“Nothing shews so strongly the power of love, in absorbing every faculty of the soul, as my dear Sophia’s being prevailed on to use art with the friend most dear to her on earth.
“By an unworthy piece of deceit, I was sent to a relation for some weeks; and the next day Sophia followed her infamous lover, leaving letters for me and her father, calculated to perswade us, they were privately married.
“My distress, and that of the unhappy parent, may more easily be conceived than described; severe by nature, he cast her from his heart and fortune for ever, and settled his estate on a nephew, then at the university.
“As to me, grief and tenderness were the only sensations I felt: I went to town, and took every private method to discover her retreat, but in vain; till near a year after, when, being in London, with a friend of my mother’s, a servant, who had lived with my Sophia, saw me in the street, and knew me: by her means, I discovered that she was in distress, abandoned by her lover, in that moment when his tenderness was most necessary.
“I flew to her, and found her in a miserable apartment, in which nothing but an extreme neatness would have made me suppose she had ever seen happier days: the servant who brought me to her attended her.
“She was in bed, pale, emaciated; the lovely babe you saw with me in her arms.
“Though prepared for my visit, she was unable to bear the shock of seeing me; I ran to her, she raised herself in the bed, and, throwing her feeble arms round my neck, could only say, ‘My Fanny! is this possible!’ and fainted away.
“Our cares having recovered her, she endeavored to compose herself; her eyes were fixed tenderly on me, she pressed my hand between hers, the tears stole silently down her cheeks; she looked at her child, then at me; she would have spoke, but the feelings of her heart were too strong for expression.
“I begged her to be calm, and promised to spend the day with her; I did not yet dare, lest the emotion should be too much for her weak state, to tell her we would part no more.
“I took a room in the house, and determined to give all my attention to the restoration of her health; after which, I hoped to contrive to make my little fortune, with industry, support us both.