seems she has written a letter to you, which passed Mr. Peters's revisal, before she had the courage to send it; and prides herself that you have favoured her with an answer to it, which, she says, when she is dead, will be found in a cover of black silk next her heart; for any thing from your hand, she is sure, will contribute to make her keep her good purposes: and for that reason she places it there; and when she has had any bad thoughts, or is guilty of any faulty word, or passionate expression, she recollects her lady's letter, which recovers her to a calm, and puts her again into a better frame.
"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.
"But I might go on thus for ever accusing myself, not considering whom I am writing to, and whose precious time I am taking up. But what I chiefly write for is, to beg your ladyship's prayers for me. For, oh! Madam, I fear I shall else be ever miserable! We every week hear of the good you do, and the charity you extend to the bodies of the miserable. Extend, I beseech you, good Madam, to the unhappy Jewkes, the mercy of your prayers, and tell me if you think I have not sinned beyond hope of pardon; for there is a woe denounced against the presumptuous sinner.
"Your ladyship assured me, at your departure, on the confession of my remorse for my misdoings, and my promise of amendment, that you would take it for proof of my being in earnest, if I would endeavour to keep up a regularity among the servants here; if I would subdue them with kindness, as I had owned myself subdued; and if I would endeavour to make every one think, that the best security they could give of doing their duty to their master in his absence, was by doing it to God Almighty, from whose all-seeing eye nothing can be hid. This, I remember, your ladyship told me, was the best test of fidelity and duty, that any servants could shew; since it was impossible, without religion, but that worldly convenience, or self-interest, must be the main tie; and so the worst actions might succeed, if servants thought they should find their sordid advantage in sacrificing their duty.
"So well am I convinced of this truth, that I hope I have begun the example to good effect: and as no one in the family was so wicked as I, it was therefore less difficult to reform them; and you will have the pleasure to know, that you have now servants here, whom you need not be ashamed to call yours.
"'Tis true, I found it a little difficult at first to keep them within sight of their duty, after your ladyship departed: but when they saw I was in earnest, and used them courteously, as you advised, and as your usage of me convinced me was the rightest usage; when they were told I had your commands to acquaint you how they conformed to your injunctions; the task became easy: and I hope we shall all be still more and more worthy of the favour of so good a lady and so bountiful a master.
"I dare not presume upon the honour of a line to your unworthy servant. Yet it would pride me much, if I could have it. But I shall ever pray for your ladyship's and his honour's felicity, as becomes your undeserving servant,
"K. JEWKES."
I have already, with these transcribed letters of Miss Darnford and Mrs. Jewkes, written a great deal: but nevertheless, as there yet remains one passage in your ladyship's letter, relating to Mrs. Jewkes, that seems to require an answer, I will take notice of it, if I shall not quite tire your patience.
That passage is this; Lady Betty rightly observes, says your ladyship, that he knew what a vile woman she [Mrs. Jewkes] was, when he put you into her power; and no doubt, employed her, because he was sure she would answer all his purposes: and therefore she should have had very little opinion of the sincerity of his reformation, while he was so solicitous in keeping her there.
She would, she says, had she been in your case, have had one struggle for her dismission, let it have been taken as it would; and he that was so well pleased with your virtue, must have thought this a natural consequence of it, if in earnest to become virtuous himself.
But, alas! Madam, he was not so well pleased with my virtue for virtue's sake, as Lady Betty thinks he was.—He would have been glad, even then, to have found me less resolved on that score. He did not so much as pretend to any disposition to virtue. No, not he!
He had entertained, as it proved, a strong passion for me, which had been heightened by my resisting it. His pride, and his advantages both of person and fortune, would not let him brook control; and when he could not have me upon his own terms, God turned his evil purposes to good ones; and he resolved to submit to mine, or rather to such as he found I would not yield to him without.
But Lady Betty thinks, I was to
