Miss St. Clare to Deterville.

I am infinitely obliged to you, my dear friend, for the entertaining letter inclosed in Zilia's: it gave me as much pleasure, as a mind so dead to enjoyment as mine, is capable of receiving. However, there is a joy which the benevolent, though unhappy breast, will find some share in, that of communicating pleasure to others: it affords me a transient comfort, to be the channel of conveying pleasure to you.

Perhaps this is the only moment of your life in which you could find yourself pleased, to hear that the amiable girl for whom you have felt so much, felt any pain herself. Think me not cruel, my good friend; but I repeat it, Zilia is really unhappy: nor be not astonished, when I say her unhappiness is on your account. Yes, I repeat it, Zilia's happiness is certainly in your power. I am convinced she loves, and that she loves Deterville. My heart, alas! has had too fatal an experience to be deceived. Was I not satisfied, that by revealing a secret which she would die rather than reveal, I was doing an essential service to two valuable friends, I should not look upon myself justified in acting the part I now do: but born, as Zilia is, with all that ardour of affection, which is consistent with unaffected modesty; formed with qualities capable of shining in the characters of wife, and mother, as well as that of friend; shall we suffer her, from a mistaken delicacy, to pine away in silent discontent, and never fulfil those social duties, for which Nature designed her? No, before I quit this world for ever, let me be instrumental in bringing about an event, which I am sure will be productive of the greatest future happiness to my friends.

But I will, without any further preface, give you an account on what I form my conjectures; I may, indeed, say my certainty.