"As she has written to you 'tis possible I might have spared you the trouble of reading this account of her; but yet you will not be displeased, that so free a liver and speaker should have some testimonial besides her own assurances, to vouch for the sincerity of her reformation.
"What a happy lady are you, that persuasion dwells upon your tongue, and reformation follows your example!"
Your ladyship will forgive me what may appear like vanity in this communication. Miss Darnford is a charming young lady. I always admired her; but her letters are the sweetest, kindest!—Yet I am too much the subject of her encomiums, and so will say no more; but add here a copy of the poor woman's letter to me; and your ladyship will see what an ample correspondence you have opened to yourself, if you go on to countenance it.
"HONOURED MADAM,
"I have been long labouring under two difficulties; the desire I had to write to you, and the fear of being thought presumptuous if I did. But I will depend on your goodness, so often tried; and put pen to paper, in that very closet, and on that desk, which once were so much used by yourself, when I was acting a part that now cuts me to the heart to think of. But you forgave me. Madam, and shewed me you had too much goodness to revoke your forgiveness; and could I have silenced the reproaches of my heart, I should have had no cause to think I had offended.
"But, Oh I Madam, how has your goodness to me, which once filled me with so much gladness, now, on reflection, made me sorrowful, and at times, miserable.—To think I should act so barbarously as I did, by so much sweetness, and so much forgiveness. Every place that I remember to have used you hardly in, how does it now fill me with sadness, and makes me often smite my breast, and sit down with tears and groans, bemoaning my vile actions, and my hard heart!—How many places are there in this melancholy fine house, that call one thing or other to my remembrance, that give me remorse! But the pond, and the woodhouse, whence I dragged you so mercilously, after I had driven you to despair almost, what thoughts do they bring to my remembrance! Then my wicked instigations.—What an odious wretch was I!
"Had his honour been as abandoned as myself, what virtue had been destroyed between his orders and my too rigorous execution of them; nay, stretching them to shew my wicked zeal, to serve a master, whom, though I honoured, I should not (as you more than once hinted to me, but with no effect at all, so resolutely wicked was my heart) have so well obeyed in his unlawful commands!
"His honour has made you amends, has done justice to your merits, and so atoned for his fault. But as for me, it is out of my power ever to make reparation.—All that is left me, is, to let your ladyship see, that your pious example has made such an impression upon me, that I am miserable now in the reflection upon my past guilt.
"You have forgiven me, and GOD will, I hope; for the creature cannot be more merciful than the Creator; that is all my hope!—Yet, sometimes, I dread that I am forgiven here, at least not punished, in order to be punished the more hereafter!—What then will become of the unhappy wretch, that has thus lived in a state of sin, and so qualified herself by a course of wickedness, as to be thought a proper instrument for the worst of purposes!
"Pray your ladyship, let not my honoured master see this letter. He will think I have the boldness to reflect upon him: when, God knows my heart, I only write to condemn myself, and my unwomanly actions, as you were pleased often most justly to call them.