 | Randolph |  |
MAD. MATILDA TO JANE.
Jane, are you mad? What a risk you have run! Your
letter came to me, unsealed! What miracle has preserved
you, I know not; but all my examination satisfies me,
that there has been no time here, for it to be read in the
office. Do you make some inquiries there. Do be more
careful. Your passions will destroy you. I must see
you—I must, you say. There is a meaning in your letter,
that freezes my blood. Beware!—Hold your hand.
Stir not, to the right nor to the left, 'till I am by your side.
everlastingly. But stop—that is dangerous to write
about. Your thought, fairly carried into execution, may
prevail. She must be married. She shall be. Many
reasons conspire to render it indispensable. The expense
of her maintenance—the sympathy that she excites—the
necessity that there is, of disguising our hostility toward
her;—and yet, poor innocent, I could almost weep,
when I think of her. But no, it must not be. It is too
late to relent, now. She must be sacrificed. She must;
for, if you live together, Jane, it is in vain to disguise it;
she will keep all the men, that are worth a thought, in
a state of perpetual hope and anxiety about her; and you
will be overlooked, except, (where captivation is only
for an hour,) in the fashionable world.
Indeed, the more that I think of it, the better I am
pleased. There is a man, too, exactly in the humour, for
our purpose. Do you remember Grenville? He still
thinks of Juliet; and you know that, but for Molton, she
would probably have given herself up to him. I think
that I can manage the matter here. I am his confidant;
and if we can compel Juliet to marry him, what harm
will be done? She will get a tight young fellow, with a
plenty of cash, a good heart, and a good profession.
way, you are under a mistake; Miss Ramsay is not a yankee
girl. She has only the yankee temper, with a little
southern heat, superadded. Her mother, however, was
altogether a female yankee—cold, insensible, handsome,
and sober.
| Randolph | |