harmony which is constantly observed, and in the conduct and conversation of every one around them. Nursed hitherto in natural simplicity, whence should they derive those vices, of which they have never seen the example? Whence those passions they have no opportunity to feel, those prejudices which nothing they observe can impress? You see they betray no bad inclination; they have adopted no erroneous notions. Their ignorance is not opinionated, their desires are not obstinate; their propensity to evil is prevented, nature is justified, and every thing serves to convince me, that the faults we accuse her of, are not those of nature but our own.
It is thus that, given up to the indulgence of their own inclinations, without disguise or alteration, our children do not take an external and artificial form, but preserve exactly that of their original character. It is thus that character daily unfolds itself to observation, and gives us an opportunity to study the workings of nature, even to her most secret principles. Sure of never being reprimanded or punished, they are ignorant of lying or concealing any thing from us; and in whatever they say, whether before us or among themselves, they discover, without restraint, whatever lies at the bottom of their hearts. Being left at full liberty to prattle all day long to each other, they are under no restraint before me. I never check them, enjoin them to silence, or indeed pretend to take notice of what they say, while they talk sometimes very blameably, though I seem to know nothing of the matter. At the same time, however, I listen to them with attention, and keep an exact account of all they say and do; for these are the natural productions of the soil which we are to cultivate. A naughty word in their mouths is a plant or seed foreign to the soil, sown by the vagrant wind: should I cut it off by a reprimand, it would not fail ere long to shoot forth again. Instead of that, therefore, I look carefully to find its root, and pluck it up. I am only, said she, smiling, the servant of the gardener; I only weed the garden, by taking away the vicious plants: it is for him to cultivate the good ones.
It must be confessed also that with all the pains I may take, I ought to be well seconded to succeed, and that such success depends on a concurrence of circumstances, which is perhaps to be met with no where but here. The knowledge and discretion of a sensible father are required, to distinguish and point out in the midst of established prejudices, the true art of governing children from the time of their birth; his patience is required to carry it into execution, without ever contradicting his precepts by his practice; it is necessary that one’s children should be happy in their birth, and that nature should have made them amiable; it is necessary to have none but sensible and well disposed servants about one, who will not fail to enter into the design of their matter. One brutal or servile domestic would be enough to spoil all. In short, when one thinks how many adventitious circumstances may injure the best designs, and spoil the bestconcerted projects, one ought to be thankful to Providence for every thing that succeeds, and to confess that wisdom depends greatly on good fortune. Say rather, I replied, that good fortune depends on prudence. Don’t you see that the concurrence of circumstances, on which you felicitate yourself, is your own doing, and that every one who approaches you is, in a manner, compelled to resemble you? O ye mothers of families! when you complain that your views, your endeavours, are not seconded, how little do you know your own power!
Be but what you ought, and you will surmount all obstacles; you will oblige every one about you to discharge their duty, if you but discharge yours. Are not your rights those of nature? In spite of the maxims or practice of vice, these will be always respected by the human heart. Do you but aspire to be women and mothers, and the most gentle empire on earth will be also the most respectable.
In the close of our conversation Eloisa remarked that her task was become much easier since the arrival of Harriot. It is certain, said she, I should have had less trouble if I would have excited a spirit of emulation between the brothers. But this step appeared to me too dangerous; I chose, therefore, rather to take more pains, and to run less risk. Harriot has made up for this; for, being of a different sex, their elder, fondly beloved by both, and very sensible for her age, I make a kind of governess of her, and with the more success, as her lessons are less suspected to be such.
As to herself, her education falls under my care; but the principles on which I proceed are so different, as to deserve particular explanation. Thus much, at least, I can say of her already, that it will be difficult to improve on the talents nature has given her, and that her merit is equal to her mother’s, if her mother could possible have an equal.
We now, my Lord, expect you every day here, so that this should be my last letter. But I understand the reason of your stay with the army, and tremble for the consequence. Eloisa is no less uneasy, and desires you will oftener let her hear from you; conjuring you, at the same time, to think how much you endanger the peace of your friends, by exposing your person. For my part, I have nothing to say to you on this subject. Discharge your duty; the advice of pusillanimity is as foreign from my heart as from yours. I know too well, my dear B----, the only catastrophe worthy of you, is, to lose your life in the service and for the honour of your country; but ought you not to give some account of your days to him, who has preserved his only for your sake?
Volume IV Letter CXL. From Lord B---- to Mrs. Orbe.
I find, by your two last letters, that a former one is missing, apparently the first you wrote me from the army, and in which you accounted for Mrs. Wolmar’s secret uneasiness. Not having received that letter, I imagine it was in the mail of one of our couriers, who was taken; you will, therefore, my friend, be pleased to recommunicate its contents. I am at a loss to conjecture what they were, and am uneasy about them. For again, I say, if happiness and peace dwell not in Eloisa’s mind, I know not where they will find an asylum on earth. You may make her easy, as to the dangers she imagines we are here exposed to; we have to do with an enemy too expert to suffer us to pursue him. With a handful of men, he baffles our attempts, and deprives us of all opportunity to attack him. As we are very sanguine, however; we may probably raise difficulties which the best generals would not be able to surmount, and at length oblige the French to fight us. I foresee our first success will cost us dear, and that the victory we gained at Dettingen will make us lose one in Flanders. We make head against a very able commander. Nor is this all; he possesses the love and confidence of his troops, and the French soldiers, when they have a good opinion of their leader, are _invincible_. [82] On the contrary, they are good for so little when they are commanded by courtiers they despise, that frequently their enemies need only to watch the intrigues of the cabinet, and seize a proper opportunity, to vanquish with certainty the bravest people on the continent: this they very well know. The duke of Marlborough, taking notice of the good look and martial air of a French soldier, taken prisoner at the battle of Blenheim, told him, if the French army had been composed of fifty thousand such men as he, it would not have been so easily beaten; Zounds sir, replied the grenadier, there are men enough in it like me, but it wants such a man as you; now such a man at present commands the French troops, and is on our side wanting; but we have courage, and trouble ourselves little about that. At all events, however, I intend to see their operations for the remainder of the campaign, and am resolved not to leave the army till it goes into winter-quarters. We shall all be gainers by such a delay, the season being too far advanced for us to think of crossing the mountains this year. I shall spend the winter with you, and not go to Italy till the beginning of the spring. Tell Mr. and Mrs. Wolmar I have thus changed my design, that I may have more time to contemplate that affecting picture you so pathetically describe, and that I may have also the opportunity to see Mrs. Orbe settled with them. Continue, my dear sir, to write with your usual punctuality, and you will do me a greater pleasure than ever: my equipage having been taken by the enemy, I have no books; but amuse myself in reading over your letters.
Letter CXLI. To Lord B----.
What pleasure does your lordship give me in acquainting me with your design of passing the winter with us at Clarens! but how dearly you make me pay for it by prolonging your stay at the army! what displeases me most, however, is to perceive that your resolution of making a campaign was fixed before we parted, though you mentioned nothing of it to me. I see, my lord, your reason for keeping it a secret, and cannot be pleased with you for it. Did you despise me so much as to think me unfit to accompany you? or have you ever known me mean enough to be attached to any thing I should prefer to the honour of dying with my friend? But if it was improper for me to follow you to the army, you should at least have left me in London; that would have displeased me less than your sending me hither.
By your last letter I am convinced that one of mine is indeed missing; the loss of which must have rendered the two succeeding ones in many respects obscure; but the necessary explanations to make them intelligible, shall be soon transmitted you. What is at present more particularly needful, is to remove your uneasiness concerning that of Mrs. Wolmar.
I shall not take upon me to give you a regular continuation of the discourse we had together after the departure of her husband. Many things have since intervened that make me forget great part of it, and it was resumed at so many different times during his absence, that I shall content myself, to avoid repetition, with giving you a summary of the whole.
In the first place she told me, that Mr. Wolmar, who neglected nothing in his power to make her happy, was nevertheless the sole author of all her disquietude; and that the more sincere their mutual attachment grew, the greater was her affliction. Would you think it, my lord?
This gentleman so prudent, so reasonable, so little addicted to any kind of vice, so little subject to the tyranny of human passions, knows nothing of that faith which gives virtue all its merit; and in the innocence of an irreproachable life, feels only at the bottom of his heart, the dreadful tranquillity of the unbeliever. The reflection which arises from this contrast, in principle and morals, but aggravates Eloisa’s grief; she would think him even less culpable in disregarding the author of his Being, had he more reason to dread his anger, or presumption to brave his power. That the guilty should be led to appease their consciences at the expence of truth; that the pride of thinking differently from the vulgar may induce others to embrace error, she can readily conceive; but, continued she sighing, how a man so virtuous, and so little vain of his understanding, should be an infidel, surpasses my conception!
But before I proceed farther, it will be necessary to inform you of the peculiar character of this married couple. You are to conceive them as living solely for each other, and constantly taken up with their family; it being necessary to know the strictness of the union subsisting between them, to comprehend how their difference of sentiments, in this one article, is capable of disturbing it. Mr.
Wolmar, educated in the customs of the Greek church, was not one of those who could support the absurdity of such ridiculous worship. His understanding, superior to the feeble yoke imposed on it, soon shook it off with contempt; rejecting, at the same time, every thing offered to his belief on such doubtful authority; thus forced in a manner into impiety, he degenerates into Atheism.
Having resided ever since in Roman-catholic countries, he has never been induced to a better opinion of Christianity, by what he found professed there. Their religion, he saw, tended only to the interest of their priests; that it consisted entirely of ridiculous grimaces, and a jargon of words without meaning. He perceived that men of sense and probity were unanimously of his opinion, and that they did not scruple to say so; nay, that the clergy themselves, under the rose, ridiculed in private what they inculcated and taught in public; hence he has often assured me that, after having taken much time and pains in the search, he never met with above three priests in his life that believed a God. [83] By endeavouring to set himself to rights in there matters, he afterwards bewildered himself in metaphysical enquiries; and, seeing only doubts and contradictions offer themselves on every side, advanced so far that, when he returned to the doctrines of Christianity, he came too late, and incapable of either belief or conviction, the best arguments appeared to him inconclusive. He finished his career, therefore, by equally opposing all religious tenets whatever; and was converted from Atheism only to become a Sceptic.
Such is the husband which heaven has destined to Eloisa; to her whose true faith and sincere piety cannot have escaped your observations; but to know how much her gentle soul is naturally inclined to devotion, requires that long intimacy with her, in which her cousin and I have lived. It might be said, no terrestrial object being equal to her tenderness, her excess of sensibility is reduced to ascend to its source: not like a saint Theresa, whose amorous heart only changes its object: hers is a heart truly inexhaustible, which neither love nor friendship can drain; but whose affections are still raised to the only Being, worthy her ardent love. [84] Her love to God does not detach her from his creatures; it gives her neither severity nor spleen. But all her affections, proceeding from the same cause, and tempering each other become more sweet and attracting; she would, I believe, be less devout, if her love toward her husband, her children, her cousin, and me were less than it is. What is very singular, also, is that she knows but little of her own heart; and even complains that she finds in herself, a soul barren of tenderness and incapable of love to the sublimest object.----“Do what you will, she often says, the heart is affected only by the interposition of the senses, or the assistance of the imagination; and how shall we see or imagine the immensity of the Supreme Being? [85] When I would raise myself up to the deity, I know no longer where I am; perceiving no relation between us, I know not how to reach him, I neither see nor feel anything, I drop into a kind of annihilation; and, if I may venture to judge of others by myself, I should apprehend the ecstasies of the mystics are no less owing to the fulness of the heart than the emptiness of the head.”
“What must I do then, added she, to get rid of these delusions of a wandering mind? I substitute a less refined worship, but within the reach of my comprehension, in the room of those sublime contemplations, which surpass my mental faculties. With regret I debase the majesty of the divinity, and interpose perceptible objects between the deity and my feeble senses; not being able to contemplate his essence, I contemplate at least his works, and admire his goodness; but whatever method I take, instead of that pure love and affection he demands, it is only an interested gratitude I have to offer him.”
Thus, every thing is productive of sentiment in a susceptible mind; the whole universe presenting to Eloisa, nothing but what is a subject for love and gratitude. On every side she sees and adores the benevolent hand of providence; her children are pledges committed by it to her care; she receives its gifts, in the produce of the earth; she sees her table covered by its bounty; she sleeps under its protection; she awakes in peace under its care; she is instructed by its chastisements, is made happy by its favours: all the benefits she reaps, all the blessings she enjoys, are so many different subjects for adoration and praise. If the attributes of the divinity are beyond her feeble sight, she feels in every part of the creation, the common father of mankind. To honour thus the supreme benevolence, is it not to serve as much as possible an infinite Being?
Think, my lord, what pain it must give a woman of such a disposition, to spend a life of retirement with a man who, while he forms a part of her existence, cannot partake, of that hope which makes her existence dear; not to be able to join him in praise and gratitude to the deity, nor to converge with him on the blessed futurity we have to hope from his goodness! to see him insensible, in doing good, to every thing which should make virtue agreeable to us; and, with the strangest absurdity, thinking like an infidel and acting as a Christian. Imagine her walking abroad with her husband; the one admiring, in the beautiful verdure of spring, or golden fruits of autumn, the power and beneficence of the great Creator of all things; the other seeing in them nothing but a fortuitous combination of atoms, united only by chance. Imagine to yourself the situation of a married couple, having a sincere regard for each other, who, for fear of giving offence, dare not indulge themselves in such sentiments or reflections as the object around them inspire; but who are bound in duty, even from their reciprocal affections, to lay themselves under continual restraint.
Eloisa and I hardly ever walk out together, but some striking or picturesque object puts her in mind of this disagreeable circumstance.
Alas! said she with great emotion to me, one day, this beautiful prospect before us, so lively, so animating in our eyes, is a dead and lifeless scene in those of the unfortunate Wolmar. In all that harmony of created beings which nature displays, in vain do they unite to speak their Maker’s praise: Mr. Wolmar perceives only a profound and eternal silence.
You who know Eloisa, who know what delight her communicative mind takes in imparting its sentiments; think what she must suffer by such constraint, even though it were attended with no other inconvenience, than that unsocial reserve which is peculiarly disagreeable between two persons so intimately connected. But Eloisa has much greater cause of uneasiness. In vain does she oppose those involuntary terrors, those dreadful ideas that rush upon her mind. They return with redoubled force, and disturb every moment of her life. How horrid must it be for such an affectionate wife to think the supreme Being is the avenger of his offended attributes! to think the happiness of him on whom her own depends must end with his life; and to behold a reprobate of God in the father of her children! all her sweetness of disposition can hardly preserve her from falling into despair at this horrible idea; her religion only, which imbitters the infidelity of her husband, yielding her strength to support it. If heaven, says she sometimes, refuses me the conversion of this honest man, I have but one blessing to ask; which is that I may die before him.
Such, my lord, is the too just cause of Eloisa’s chagrin; such is the secret affliction which preys on her mind, and is aggravated by the care she takes to conceal it. Atheism, which stalks abroad undisguised among the Papists, is obliged to hide its head in every country, where reason, giving a sanction to religion, deprives infidels of all excuse. Its principles are naturally destructive; and, though they find partisans among the rich and great, who promote them, they are held in the utmost horror by an oppress’d and miserable people; who, seeing their tyrants thus freed from the only curb to restrain their insolence, comfort themselves with the hope of another life, their only consolation in this. Mrs. Wolmar, foreseeing the ill-consequences of her husband’s scepticism, and being desirous to preserve her children from the bad effects of so dangerous an example, prevailed on him to keep his principles a secret; to which she found no great trouble to persuade a man who, though honest and sincere, is yet discreet, unaffected, without vanity, and far from wishing to deprive others of a blessing which he himself cannot enjoy. In consequence of this, he keeps his tenets to himself; he goes to church with us; conforms himself to custom; and without making a verbal confession of what he does not believe, avoids giving scandal, and pays all that respect to the established religion of the country which the state has a right to demand of its citizens.
They have been married now almost eight years, during which time Mrs.
Orbe only has been in the secret; nor probably would she of herself ever have discovered it. Such care indeed is taken to save appearances, and with so little affectation, that, after having spent six weeks together in the greatest intimacy, I had not the least suspicion; and should perhaps never have known Mr. Wolmar’s sentiments on religious matters, if Eloisa herself had not apprized me of them.
Several motives determined her to that confidence: In the first place, a too great reserve would have been incompatible with the friendship that subsists between us. Again, it would be only aggravating her uneasiness at her own cost, to deny herself the consolation of sharing it with a friend. She was, besides, unwilling that my presence would be long an obstacle to the conversation they frequently held together on a subject she had so much at heart. In short, knowing you intended soon to join us here, she was desirous, with the consent of her husband, that you should be previously made acquainted with his sentiments; as she hopes to find from your prudence and abilities, a supplement to our hitherto fruitless efforts, worthy of your character.
The opportunity she laid hold of to place this confidence in me, made me suspect also another reason, which however she herself never insinuated. Her husband has just left us; we lived formerly together; our hearts had been enamoured of each other; they still remembered their former transports; had they now forgot themselves but for a moment, we had been plunged into guilt and infamy. I saw plainly she was fearful of our private conversations, and sought to prevent the consequences she feared; and I was myself too well convinced, by the remembrance of what happened at Meillerie, that they who consider least in themselves are the safest to be trusted.
Under these groundless apprehensions, which her natural timidity inspired, she conceived she could take no better precaution than always to have a witness to our conversation, whose presence could not fail of being respected; and to call in, as a third person, the awful and upright judge, who searches the heart, and is privy to the most secret actions of men. Thus, committing herself to the immediate protection of the divinity, I found the deity always between us. What criminal desire could ever assail such a safeguard? my heart grew refined by her zeal, and I partook of her virtue.
Thus, the gravest topics of discourse took up almost all our private conferences in the absence of her husband; and since his return, we have resumed them frequently in his presence. He attends to our conversation, as if he was not at all concerned; and, without despising our endeavours, sometimes advises us in our method of argument. It is this which makes me despair of success; for had he less sincerity, one might attack that vicious faculty of the mind that nourishes his infidelity; but, if we are to convince him by dint of reasoning, where shall we find information that has escaped his knowledge, or arguments that have eluded his sagacity? For my part, when I have undertaken to dispute with him, I have found that all mine had been before exhausted to no purpose by Eloisa; and that my reasoning fell far short of that pathetic eloquence which dictated by the heart, flowed in persuasive accents from her tongue. I fear, my lord, we shall never make a convert of this man. He is too frigid, not immoral; his passions are not to be moved; sensibility, that innate proof of the truth of religion, is wanting; and the want of this alone is enough to invalidate all others.
Notwithstanding Eloisa’s care to disguise her uneasiness from him, he knows and partakes of it; his discernment will not permit him to be imposed on. His own chagrin therefore, on account of hers, is but too apparent. Hence he has been tempted several times, she told me, to affect a change of sentiments; and, for the sake of Eloisa’s peace, to adopt tenets he could not in fact believe: but his soul was above the meanness of hypocrisy. This dissimulation, instead of imposing on Eloisa, would only have afforded a new cause of sorrow. That sincerity, that frankness, that union of hearts, which now comfort them under their afflictions, would then have no more subsisted between them. Was it by making himself less worthy her esteem that he could hope to calm her fears? No, instead therefore of deceiving her, he tells her sincerely his thoughts; but this he does in a manner so simple and unaffected, so little disdainful of received opinions, so unlike that ironical, contemptuous behaviour of free-thinkers, that such melancholy confessions are extremely afflicting. As she cannot, however, inspire her husband with that faith and hope, with which she herself is animated, she studies with the more assiduity to indulge him, in all those transient pleasures to which his happiness is confined. Alas! says she weeping, if the poor unfortunate has his heaven in this life, let us make it, at, least, as agreeable to him as possible! [86] That veil of sorrow, which this difference in opinion throws over their union, gives a farther proof of the irresistible ascendant of Eloisa, in the consolation with which that affliction is tempered, and which perhaps no other person in the world would be able to apply. All their altercations, all their disputes, on this important point, so far from giving rise to ill nature, contempt, or anger, generally end in some affecting scene which the more endears them to each other.
Our conversation falling yesterday upon the same subject, as it frequently does when we three are by ourselves, we were led into a dispute concerning the origin of evil; in which I endeavoured to prove, that no absolute or general evil existed in the system of nature; but that even particular and relative evils were much less in reality, than in appearance; and that, on the whole, they were more than recompensed by our particular and relative good. As an example of this, I appealed to Mr. Wolmar himself, and, penetrated with a sense of the happiness of his situation, I described it so justly, and in such agreeable colours, that he seemed himself affected with the description. “Such,” says he, interrupting me, “are the delusive arguments of Eloisa: she always substitutes sentiment in the place of reason, and argues so affectingly, that I cannot help embracing her at every reply: Was it not her philosophical preceptor,” added he, smiling, “that taught her this manner of reasoning?” Two months before, this piece of pleasantry would have cruelly disconcerted me; but my first embarrassment was now over, and I joined in the laugh: nor did Eloisa, tho’ she blush’d a little, appear any more embarrassed than myself. We continued the dispute. Wolmar, not contending about the quantity of evil, contented himself with observing that whether little or much, evil still existed; and thence inferred the want either of power, wisdom, or goodness, in the first cause. I, on my part, stove to deduce the origin of physical evil from the properties of matter, and of moral evil from the free agency of man. I advanced, that nothing was impossible to the deity, except the creation of substances as perfect and exempt from evil as himself. We were in the heat of our dispute when I perceived Eloisa had left us. “Can you guess whither she is gone?” said her husband, seeing me look around for her. “I suppose,” said I, “to give some orders in her family.”
“No,” replied he, “she would not have left us at this time for that.
Business of that kind is, I know not how, transacted without my ever seeing her interfere.” “Then she is gone to the nursery?” “No; her children are not more at her heart, than my conversion.” “Well then,” said I, “I know not what she is gone about; but I am well assured she is employed in some useful concern.” “Still less,” said he coldly; “come, come along; you shall see if I guess right.”
He then stept softly along the room, and I followed him in the same manner: when, coming to the door of Eloisa’s closet, and finding it shut, he threw it suddenly open. Oh! my lord! what a sight did this present us! Eloisa on her knees, her hands lifted up to heaven, and her face bathed in tears! She rose up precipitately, wiping her eyes, hiding her face, and trying to escape us: never did I see so affecting a confusion. Her husband did not give her time to get away; but ran to her, in a kind of transport. “Ah, my dear!” said he, embracing her, “even the fervency of your prayers betrays the weakness of your cause: what prevents their efficacy? if your desires were heard, they would presently be granted.” “I doubt not,” said she, with a devout confidence, “but they will be granted; how soon or late, I leave to heaven. Could I obtain it, at the expense of my life, I should lay it down with pleasure, and think the last the best employed of all my days.”
Come, my lord, leave those scenes of destruction you are now engaged in, and act a nobler part. Can a philosopher prefer the honour of destroying mankind, to the virtue of endeavouring to save them? [87] Letter CXLII. To Lord B----.
What! my lord, after being absent a whole campaign, must you take a journey to Paris? Have you then entirely forgotten Clarens, and its inhabitants? Are we less dear to you than my lord H----? or, are you more necessary to that friend, than to those who expect you here? you oblige us to oppose our wishes to yours, and make me in particular lament, that I have not interest enough at the court of France, to prevent your obtaining the passports you wait for. But, no matter; go, visit your worthy countryman. In spite of you both, we will be revenged of you for the preference given him; for, whatever pleasure you may enjoy in his company, I know that, when you come to be with us, you will regret the time you staid away.
On receiving your letter, I at first suspected you were charged with some secret commission. If peace were in view, where could be found a more worthy mediator? But when do kings put their confidence in men of worth? Dare they listen to the truth? do they know how to respect true merit? No, my dear Lord B----, you are not made for a minister of state; and I think too well of you to imagine, if you had not been born a peer, you would ever have risen to that dignity. Come, come, my friend, you will be better at Clarens, than at court. What an agreeable winter shall we pass together, if the hope of seeing you here does not deceive me! our happiness is every day preparing, by the arrival of one or other of those privileged minds, who are so dear to each other, so worthy of each other’s esteem, and who seem only to wait for you to be able to live without all the rest of the world. On hearing what a lucky accident brought hither the baron’s adversary, you foresaw the consequences of that rencounter; it has really fallen out as you foretold. That old litigant, tho’ almost as obstinate and inflexible as his opponent, could not resist the ascendant we got over him. After seeing and conversing with Eloisa, he began to be ashamed of contending with her father; and on leaving her, set out for Bern, in so favourable a disposition, that we hear an accommodation is far advanced, and from the baron’s last letter expect his return home in a few days. This you will already have been told by Mr. Wolmar: but probably you do not yet know that Mrs. Orbe, having settled her affairs, arrived here on Thursday last, and resides entirely at the house of her friend. As I knew beforehand the day of her arrival, I set out to meet her, unknown to Mrs. Wolmar, whom she had a mind to surprize: we met on this side Lutry and returned together.
I think I never saw her so sprightly and agreeable; but unequal, absent, giving little attention to any thing, and seldom replying; talking by fits and starts; in a word, given up entirely to that restlessness which is natural to us, when just on the point of obtaining what we have long ardently desired. One would have thought, every minute, that she was afraid of being obliged to return. Her journey, tho’ so long deferred, was undertaken so precipitately, that it almost turned the heads of both mistress and domestics. A whimsical disorder appeared throughout the whole of her little baggage. If her woman imagined, as she did every now and then, that she had left something behind, Clara as constantly assured her she had put it into the seat of the coach where, upon farther enquiry, it was not to be found.
As she was unwilling Eloisa should hear the rattling of her coach, she got out in the avenue before we came to the gate; and, skudding across the courtyard like a sylph, ran upstairs with so much precipitation that she was obliged to stop and take breath on the first landing place, before she could get up the next flight. Mr. Wolmar came out to meet her, but she was in too much hurry to speak to him. On opening the door of Eloisa’s apartment, I saw her sitting near the window, with the little Harriot on her knee. Clara had prepared for her a fine compliment, in her way, a compound of affection and pleasantry; but, on setting her foot over the threshold, compliment and pleasantry were all forgotten; she flew forward to embrace her friend with a transport impossible to be described, crying out ah! my dear, dear cousin!
Harriot, seeing her mother, fled to meet her, and crying out _Mamma, Mamma_, ran with so much force against her, that the poor child fell backwards on the floor. The effect of the sudden appearance of Clara, the fall of Harriot, the joy, the apprehensions, that seized upon Eloisa at that instant, made her give a violent shriek, and faint away. Clara was going to lift up the child when she saw her friend turn pale, which made her hesitate whom to assist; till, seeing me take up Harriot, she flew to the relief of Eloisa; but, in endeavouring to recover her, sunk down likewise in a swoon by the side of her friend.
The child, seeing them both without motion, made such loud lamentations as soon brought the little Frenchwoman into the room; the one clung about her mother, the other ran to her mistress. For my