Have I not laboured long and hard to save him from this very vice?
Would I not labour still to deliver him from it if I could?
but could I do so by fawning upon him and caressing him when I know that he scorns me?
Is it my fault that I have lost my influence with him, or that he has forfeited every claim to my regard?
And should I seek a reconciliation with him, when I feel that I abhor him, and that he despises me?
and while he continues still to correspond with Lady Lowborough, as I know he does?
No, never, never, never! he may drink himself dead, but it is NOT my fault! Yet I do my part to save him still: I give him to understand that drinking makes his eyes dull, and his face red and bloated; and that it tends to render him imbecile in body and mind; and if Annabella were to see him as often as I do, she would speedily be disenchanted; and that she certainly will withdraw her favour from him, if he continues such courses.

Such a mode of admonition wins only coarse abuse for me--and, indeed, I almost feel as if I deserved it, for I hate to use such arguments; but they sink into his stupefied heart, and make him pause, and ponder, and abstain, more than anything else I could say.
At present I am enjoying a temporary relief from his presence: he is gone with Hargrave to join a distant hunt, and will probably not be back before to-morrow evening.

How differently I used to feel his absence! Mr.Hargrave is still at the Grove.

He and Arthur frequently meet to pursue their rural sports together: he often calls upon us here, and Arthur not unfrequently rides over to him.

I do not think either of these soi-disant friends is overflowing with love for the other; but such intercourse serves to get the time on, and I am very willing it should continue, as it saves me some hours of discomfort in Arthur's society, and gives him some better employment than the sottish indulgence of his sensual appetites.