Chapter XXVI: Letter XXVI: To THE SYLPH

It is happy for me, if my actions have stood so much in my favour, as to make any return for the obligations, which I feel I want words to express. Alas! what would have become of me without the friendly, the paternal admonitions of my kind Sylph! Spare me not, tell me all my faults--for, notwithstanding your partiality, I find them numerous. I feel the necessity of having those admonitions often inforced; and am apprehensive I shall grow troublesome to you.

Will, then, my friend allow me to have recourse to him on any important occasion--or what may appear so to me? Surely an implicit observance of his precepts will be the least return I can make for his disinterested interposition in my favour--and thus, as it were, stepping in between me and ruin. Believe me, my heart overflows with a grateful sense of these unmerited benefits--and feels the strongest resolution to persevere in the paths of rectitude so kindly pointed out to me by the hand of Heaven.

I experience a sincere affliction, that the renunciation of part of my future subsistence should not have had the desired effect; but _none_ that I have parted with it. My husband is young, and blest with a most excellent constitution, which even _his_ irregularities have not injured. I am young likewise, but of a more delicate frame, which the repeated hurries I have for many months past lived in (joined to a variety of other causes, from anxieties and inquietude of mind) have not a little impaired; so that I have not a remote idea of living to want what I have already bestowed, or may hereafter resign, for the benefit of my husband's creditors. Yet in this, as well as every thing else, I will submit to your more enlightened judgment--and abide most chearfully by your decision.

Would to Heaven Sir William would listen to such an adviser! He yet might retrieve his affairs. We yet might be happy. But, alas! he will not suffer his reason to have any sway over his actions. He hurries on to ruin with hasty strides--nor ever casts one look behind.

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The perturbation these sad reflections create in my bosom will apologize to my worthy guide for the abruptness of this conclusion, as well as the incorrectness of the whole. May Heaven reward you! prays your ever grateful,

JULIA STANLEY.

VOLUME II