He then read part of a letter
written in English, by the admired Mrs. Beaumont; some of the contents
of which were, as you shall hear, extremely affecting.
'Mrs. Beaumont gives him in it an account of the situation of the unhappy
young lady; and excuses herself for not having done it before, in answer
to his request, by reason of an indisposition under which she had for
some time laboured, which had hindered her from making the necessary
inquiries.
'She mentions, that the lady had received no benefit from her journeyings
from place to place; and from her voyage from Leghorn to Naples, and back
again; and blames her attendants, who, to quiet her, unknown to their
principals, for some time, kept her in expectation of seeing her
Chevalier, at the end of each; for her more prudent Camilla, she says,
had been hindered by illness from attending her, in several of the
excursions.
'They had a second time, at her own request, put her into a nunnery. She
at first was so sedate in it as gave them hopes: but the novelty going
off, and one of the sisters, to try her, having officiously asked her to
go with her into the parlour, where she said, she would be allowed to
converse through the grate with a certain English gentleman, her
impatience, on her disappointment, made her more ungovernable than they
had ever known her; for she had been for two hours before meditating what
she would say to him.
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