But still the attack made upon you in your dressing-room at Colnebrook,
by my sister and me, sticks in your stomach--And why so? We were willing
to shew you, that we were not the silly people you must have thought us,
had we not been able to distinguish light from darkness. You, who ever
were, I believe, one of the frankest-hearted girls in Britain, and
admired for the ease and dignity given you by that frankness, were
growing awkward, nay dishonest. Your gratitude! your gratitude! was the
dust you wanted to throw into our eyes, that we might not see that you
were governed by a stronger motive. You called us your friends, your
sisters, but treated us not as either; and this man, and that, and
t'other, you could refuse; and why? No reason given for it; and we were
to be popt off with your gratitude, truly!--We were to believe just what
you said, and no more; nay, not so much as you said. But we were not so
implicit. Nor would you, in our case, have been so.
But 'you, perhaps, would not have violently broken in upon a poor thing,
who thought we were blind, because she was not willing we should see.'--
May be not: but then, in that case, we were honester than you would have
been; that's all. Here, said I, Lady L----, is this poor girl awkwardly
struggling to conceal what every body sees; and, seeing, applauds her
for, the man considered: [Yes, Harriet, the man considered; be pleased to
take that in:] let us, in pity, relieve her.
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