3

approve such conduct--you {call?} it unjust and cruel."
"This is too much," said Julia again rising--
know before you load me with this {obliging?} that it is your
nephew and not me that you have to blame. It was he that
abandoned me--that wasted his fortune on others--and when he
had nothing more to support him abroad, returned
home--that it is by his ardor I receive Capt Mirvan,
and--and", she could say no more--the anger which
had betrayed her into these accusations of her husband,
choked her utterance and sinking on her chair, she hid
her face with her hands and sobbed aloud--her natural
generosity, reproached her for what she had said of her husband,
and her sense of justice {smite?} her with the sensations
that to blame was not all on her side.
Had Mrs Edwards seized this yielding moment, she
might have made the impression she wished--but without
any tenderness herself, she could not sympathetic in that
of another--Austere and strict in her idea of duty, she could
feel no indulgence for the weakness or frailty of others,
her's was right --which hardens into wrong
and partook not of that divine clemencky which, breaketh
not the bruised need--and quencheth not the smoking flare.
At that moment Julia's heart was the bruised need--
and her repentant { ?}--the smoking flare, which { ?}
and kindness might have kindled to a flame.
She felt more painfully and keenly her own injustice and un-
kindness to her husband--then Mrs Edward's to her,
and humiliated by this self-condemnation, she would have
confessed her error--had not that Lady's { ?}
closed her lips.
"And your husband I suppose tells you to
spend your time in wandering about the county with her
man--and to go to empty houses and hide yourselves
for days together."
Julia stared with surprise--
"Oh, you think then that all those things are not known
and that while you indulge yourself in such guilty pleasure,