If recollection will assist me, a word or two more of Mr. and Mrs. Powis.
Lady Sophia—the deuce is in me! you know who I mean;—why write I the name of Lady Sophia?—upon my honour, I have given over all thoughts of that divinity—Lady Mary I should have said, a few months after the nuptials of her friends, wrote to Mr. Powis, who was then at Barford Abbey, an absolute refusal, in consequence of a preconcerned plan of operation.—Immediately after this, she set out with Mrs. Powis for London, whose situation made it necessary for her to leave Hillford Down.
You will suppose, on the receipt of this letter, how matters were at the Abbey:—Sir. James rav'd; even Lady Powis thought her son ill us'd; but, in consideration of their former intimacy, prevail'd on Sir James never to mention the affair, though from this time all acquaintance ceas'd between the families.
In order to conceal the marriage, it was inevitable Mr. Powis must carry his wife abroad;—and as he intended to travel before the match was thought of with Lady Mary,—his father now readily consented that he should begin his tour.—This furnish'd him with an excuse to go immediately to town,—where he waited 'till the angel that we all weep for, made her appearance.
But what, you ask, was Mrs. Powis's excuse to leave England, without being suspected?—Why, I'll tell you: by the contrivance of Lady Mary, together with Mrs. Whitmore, it was believ'd she had left the world;—that she died in town of a malignant fever;—that—but I cannot be circumstantial—Miss Powis, after her parents went abroad, was brought down by Lady Mary, and consign'd to the care of her grandmother, with whom she liv'd as the orphan child of some distant relation.
Whilst Mr. and Mrs. Powis were travelling through Italy, he apply'd to his friend the Lord-Lieutenant,—and by that interest was appointed to the government of ——. It was here my acquaintance with them commenc'd: not that I suspected Miss Glinn to be Mrs. Powis, though I saw her every day.—Glinn was a name she assum'd 'till she returned to England.—A thousand little circumstances which render'd her character unsuspected, I want spirits to relate.—Suffice it to say,—the death of Mrs. Whitmore;—a daughter passing on the world for an orphan;—and the absence of Lady Mary Sutton;—made them resolve to hazard every thing rather than leave their child unprotected.—Alas! for what are they come home?
Nothing is impossible with a Supreme Being.—Lord Darcey may recover.—But why this ray of hope to make the horrors of my mind more dreadful?—He is past hope, you say.—
RISBY.