University of Virginia Library

LETTER IX.
ANNE TO ELENOR.

I ENCLOSE you two letters, which I have
received from Mrs. Darnley, and they will sufficiently
account for my not paying you my intended
visit. You will perceive when you have

perused them, that all is not right in the family
of our friend. I am angry with Darnley; he has
led his wife into an improper connexion, and I
strongly suspect his motives are not such as
would bear a strict scrutiny. I am not better
pleased with the officious meddling of Miss Melbourn.
She might, and indeed ought to have
hinted to her cousin, the impropriety of his introducing
a woman to his wife whose character
was suspicious; and who had been sent into
France by her husband, because he had reasons
to suppose that too great an intimacy subsisted
hetween her and Darnley. This, I say, would
have been a duty; but she ought by no means
to have awakened suspicions in Mrs Darnley's
bosom derogatory to her husband's honor. There
might have been methods taken to have shamed
him out of his folly, (not to give it a harsher
name,) without interrupting the peace of his
wife. I do not think Sarah is of a jealous temper,
but the inuendos of Mary Melbourn
might awaken suspicion; and where suspicion is
once called into action, every word, look and
movement is considered through a false medium,
and even the most innocent, construed into
proofs of guilt I am convinced that more than
half the uneasinesses that subsist between married
persons have originated in meddling friends
of either sex; but to our shame, I must own, I
believe our own sex more addicted to this folly
than the other. Let persons think what they
will, unless they have proofs beyond the possibility
of doubt, they ought to be silent;
and even in that case, it is better to reason
with the offending party, than to hint their
discoveries to the husband or wife, whom either
ardent affection, or perfect indifference, may
have rendered blind; for though in the latter
case, there is no fear of lacerating the heart of
the person to whom the information is given;
yet wounded pride will often, nay, perhaps oftener,
lead to fatal consequences than slighted
affection.

This Mrs. Romain bears the character of a
very artful woman. Her husband was a Frenchman,
and she herself, having been educated in
that country, had imbibed much of that lightness
and flippancy which frequently characterize the
women of that nation. Her mind is cultivated;
but it did not in early life receive a proper bias.
She had no kind parent to restrain the exuberance
of her vivacity, to teach her to keep her passions
under the subjection of reason and religion. Natural
consequence followed; the former hurried
her into imprudencies, the latter plunged her
into guilt. I say guilt, because there is no reason
to doubt of her criminal intimacy with Darnley.
The summer before he became acquainted
with Sarah, this woman had a small house near
the summer residence of Darnley's family. Her
manners being polished, her temper naturally
sweet, her cheerfulness exhilarating to all with
whom she associated, she soon became a favorite
with Mrs. Darnley, who, having met her several

times at visits in the neighborhood, invited her
to her house, and an intimacy ensued. Mr. Romain
was considerably older than herself, but
his affection to her was evident in all his actions.
The difference in their age was not so great as
to make their union appear preposterous; he
might have been fifteen years the elder; but he
was a man whom any woman might respect, and
when treated by him as his wife ever was, whom
it would, one would imagine, be next to impossible
not to love. He was sensible, had the manners
of a gentleman; was of an easy temper,
and unbounded benevolence. Mrs. Romain, at
the time she became intimate in Mr. Darnley's
family, was the mother of a fine boy, and on the
eve of again becoming a parent. Indulged by a
fond husband, to whom she owed every thing, in
every wish of her heart, adored, caressed; never
opposed; is it not wonderful that she could be
so depraved, as wilfully to throw from her this
inexhaustible mine of happiness, and court ruin
and infamy? I write not from hear-say; I write
from incontestible proofs. My mother's sister
lived in the next house, and was unwillingly
made a party in the scene of confusion which
followed the discovery of her lapse from virtue.
Mr. Romain having confided some papers to her
care, when first he began to fear his wife's affections
were estranged from him, without mentioning
his suspicions; when those suspicions
were fully confirmed, relieved his almost breaking
heart, by relating many circumstances, which
might otherwise have never transpired. My
aunt never mentioned the affair until after Darnley
was married to my friend Sarah; and then
a sudden exclamation, that he was unworthy so
good a wife, led to the relation. I will continue
my narrative next week. Adieu.