I should myself have shrunk from any thing so hasty, and she would have felt every scruple of mine with multiplied strength and refinement .-- But I had no choice.

The hasty engagement she had entered into with that woman--Here, my dear madam, I was obliged to leave off abruptly, to recollect and compose myself .-- I have been walking over the country, and am now, I hope, rational enough to make the rest of my letter what it ought to be .-- It is, in fact, a most mortifying retrospect for me.

I behaved shamefully.

And here I can admit, that my manners to Miss W., in being unpleasant to Miss F., were highly blameable.

_She_ disapproved them, which ought to have been enough .-- My plea of concealing the truth she did not think sufficient .-- She was displeased; I thought unreasonably so: I thought her, on a thousand occasions, unnecessarily scrupulous and cautious: I thought her even cold.