My Lord Ossory's letter has touched you: you think my answer too haughty; you do not approve this excess of severity – Go on, my dear, add to my uneasiness. I admire with what ease we adapt every thing to our own present sentiments: you had just forgiven my Lord Castle-Cary when you sat down to write. Softened by the pleasures of a tender reconciliation, you think I ought to pardon also; that it is cruelty not to pardon. You entreat me, you conjure me to hear my Lord Ossory. If I was inclined to give you that proof of complaisance, is it in my power? – How can I listen to him! He no longer desires to be heard – You pity him! Can you then believe, that after his desertion of me, after his marriage, and two years of forgetfulness, my indifference has power to afflict him! – He wished only to try me: his vanity persuaded him, I still loved him; that his least concessions would destroy my resolutions. Without doubt, his offering to justify himself, was sufficient to efface the remembrance of his perfidy, of a treachery of the blackest kind; I ought to have flown to receive the heart he deigned to restore to me: so valuable a blessing merited my eager acceptance; My gratitude, perhaps – Insupportable insolence of men! Intolerable pride! – I ought, however, to thank my Lord Ossory; his last caprice has been of more service to me than time or reason; it has destroyed the remains of that inclination, over which I feared I could never have triumphed: I could not till now, think of this ingrate without tenderness; at present I could behold him, without the least emotion; I am tranquill: I no longer fear his sight, his importunities: is not this the very point I have so ardently wished to arrive at? – With what cruelty has he sought to disturb my peace of mind, to rekindle that love which he was never worthy to inspire me with? From whence comes it then, that I ever loved him with such fondness? I have been looking at his picture this morning; I held it above an hour in my hand; I contemplated it without being affected: I am even astonished at my former attachment.