LETTER V

My dear Mrs. G.
Cheltenham, June 12th
I hope long before this you have received the account of my brother's visit to me, and that the assurance of an engagement for three years at five pounds a week, commencing the season after the next, has put you all into a more comfortable frame of mind than Mr Harris's letter was likely to produce.
(Nothing could be more the reverse in respect to my feelings. Oppressed with a supposed weight of obligation, by the great trouble and exertion Mrs. S. said it had cost her to obtain this engagement, and for the first time understanding Mr. Kemble was adverse to it, (and which never before had been hinted to me), I could not be gratified by obtaining a much more lucrative situation on such terms ; but when [ was not to be a gainer of a farthing by the exchange, on the contrary I must forego many advantages which it was not likely (indeed possible) I could possess, no words can describe the mortification I felt on reading this letter my first determination was instantly to refuse it.
But alas ! I was not permitted to follow the dictates of my head or heart, by a blind submission to the will of that person to whom I had already sacrificed so much, and an equally blind confidence in an another, I determined my ruin by writing a letter of thanks, from what every feeling of my heart revolted at

the acceptance of; thus was I betrayed by the two persons in the world in whom I most confided, to follow an ignis fatuus, a false hope, which ultimately has been my destruction, and that of my helpless infants, by depriving me of the means of preserving or increasing the only dependance they had, the little fortunes and industry of their deluded mother.
I was unwilling to send it, but I thought it right to tell you precisely how the business stood especially as it was a thing of too much consequence, with respect to your arrangements in the interim. This letter is to serve as an answer to Mr. G.s, (I know not what caused the remainder of this letter, for though it is addressed to me, it was intended for Mr, G.'s instruction.) and I most sincerely hope I may never receive such another: for alas the pressure of my own affliction has not yet hardened me into an insensibility to the sorrows and mishaps of my friends, my friends too should know this.
But I say no more, I most sincerely wish his spirits may be again restored ; he tells me, I have taken too much trouble about this engagement, and that "happiness is purchased at too dear a price." I will own, in answer to the first assertion, that it has cost me much and various and very bitter contention; but I have gained the victory at last, and it depends on the moderation of the wishes and expectations of us all, whether the conflict is ended peaceably and honourably.(The event has proved how honourable to some of the parties, how destructive to others.)
I pray God it may for to live in a state of contention with a brother I so tenderly love, and a husband (I could never guess