To the Chevalier Dubois, at Malta.

Nothing has indeed happened, my dear friend, which can at all countenance your prognostics. Zilia's looks are more placid, but not less firm than before. She behaves with great sweetness, but joined with that kind of reserve which gives no hope; nor have I the least reason to imagine she will ever change her sentiments. However, as you wish me to change the subject, I will not dwell for ever on the same, but entertain you with what you so much wished to be acquainted with; the history of Miss St. Clare, as she gave it in writing to my sister: it is a melancholy one, and, I think, upon the whole, will give you more pain than pleasure. But I will no longer anticipate.

Here begins her story.

“I comply with your request, my dear Madam; which I am the more willing to do, as I have reason to think my life will not be long: and I would wish my unhappy story to be told (after my decease) without any extenuations or aggravations; nor falsely represented, as it already has been, by those whose curiosity tempts them to supply, by their invention, a want of finding out whatever they desire to know.”

You know that my father possessed a very genteel appointment under the government; the salary of which, joined to his own paternal estate, which, though not large, was far from despicable, was sufficient to provide for his family, so as to set them above dependence. I had a brother older, and a sister younger than myself: I may say that adversity was my early portion; for the great partiality my mother shewed to them, and the unnecessary severity with which she treated me, embittered those days which are generally passed without anxiety.

The daily discouragement I met with, damped the natural vivacity of my temper, and gave me a turn for gravity, which is seldom found in young minds.