Methought she said—“Why thus forlorn?—
Be all thy care resign’d:”—
I ’woke and found my Delia gone,
But still the TEAR behind.
LETTER XXI.
Harriot to Myra.
Rhodeisland.
WE arrived here in safety, but our journey is not without incident—an incident which exhibits a melancholy picture of the wickedness and depravity of the human heart.
WHEN we came to the house of Mrs. Martin, who I suppose you know is cousin to Mrs. Francis, we were not a little astonished at the evident traces of distress in her countenance; all her actions were accompanied with an air of solemnity, and her former gaiety of heart was exchanged for sad, serious thoughtfulness: She, however, put on a face of vivacity upon our being introduced, but her cheerfulness was foreign to the feelings of her heart.
MR. Martin was equally agitated: he endeavoured to dispossess himself of an uncommon weight of remorse, but in vain—all his dissimulation could not conceal his emotion, nor his art abate the continual upbraidings of conscious guilt.