i can pity others, or i should not deserve pity myself. he pointed to the place; and withdrew to the window. mrs. beaumont says, that the poor mother was prevailed upon to resign her child wholly to the management of lady sforza, and her daughter laurana, who took her with them to their palace in milan. the tender parent, however, besought them to spare all unnecessary severity; which they promised: but laurana objected to camillas attendance. she was thought too indulgent; and her servant laura, as a more manageable person, was taken in her place. and o how cruelly, as you shall hear, did they treat her! father marescotti, being obliged to visit a dying relation at milan, was desired by the marchioness to inform himself of the way her beloved daughter was in, and of the methods taken with her, lady laurana having, in her letters, boasted of both. the good father acquainted mrs. beaumont with the following particulars: he was surprised to find a difficulty made of his seeing the lady: but, insisting on it, he found her to be wholly spiritless, and in terror; afraid to speak, afraid to look, before her cousin laurana; yet seeming to want to complain to him. he took notice of this to lauranao father, said she, we are in the right way, i assure you: when we had her first, her chevalier, and an interview with him, were ever in her mouth; but now she is in such order, that she never speaks a word of him. but what, asked the compassionate father, must she have suffered, to be brought to this?dont you, father, trouble yourself about that, replied the cruel laurana: the doctors have given their opinion, that some severity was necessary. it is all for her good. the poor lady expressed herself to him, with earnestness, after the veil; a subject on which, it seems, they indulged her; urging, that the only way to secure her health of mind, if it could be restored, was to yield to her wishes. lady sforza said, that it was not a point that she herself would press; but it was her opinion, that her family sinned in opposing a divine dedication; and, perhaps, their daughters malady might be a judgment upon them for it. the father, in his letter to mrs. beaumont, ascribes to lady sforza selfinterested motives for her conduct; to laurana, envy, on account of lady clementinas superior qualities: but nobody, he says, till now, doubted lauranas love of her. father marescotti then gives a shocking instance of the barbarous lauranas treatment of the noble suffererall for her goodwretch! how my heart rises against her! her servant laura, under pretence of confessing to her bologna father, in tears, acquainted him with it. it was perpetrated but the day before. when any severity was to be exercised upon the unhappy lady, laura was always shut out of her apartment. her lady had said something that she was to be chidden for. lady sforza, who was not altogether so severe as her daughter, was not at home. laura listened in tears: she heard laurana in great wrath with lady clementina, and threaten herand her young lady break out to this effectwhat have i done to you, laurana, to be so used?you are not the cousin laurana you used to be! you know i am not able to help myself: why do you call me crazy, and frantic, laurana? [vile upbraider, lucy!] if the almighty has laid his hand upon me, should i not be pitied? it is all for your good! it is all for your good, clementina! you could not always have spoken so sensibly, cousin. cruel laurana! you loved me once! i have no mother, as you have. my mother was a good mother: but she is gone! or i am gone, i know not which! she threatened her then with the strait waistcoat, a punishment which the unhappy lady was always greatly terrified at. laura heard her beg and pray; but, laurana coming out, she was forced to retire. the poor young lady apprehending her cruel cousins return with the threatened waistcoat, and with the woman that used to be brought in when they were disposed to terrify her, went down and hid herself under a staircase, where she was soon discovered by her clothes, which she had not been careful to draw in after her. o, lucy! how i wept! how insupportable to me, said sir charles, would have been my reflections, had my conscience told me, that i had been the wilful cause of the noble clementinas calamity! after i had a little recovered, i read to myself the next paragraph, which related, that the cruel laurana dragged the sweet sufferer by her gown, from her hidingplace, inveighing against her, threatening her: she, all patient, resigned, her hands crossed on her bosom, praying for ercy, not by speech, but by her eyes, which, however, wept not: and causing her to be carried up to her chamber, there punished her with the strait waistcoat, as she had threatened. father marescotti was greatly affected with lauras relation, as well as with what he had himself observed: but on his return to bologna, dreading to acquaint her mother, for her own sake, with the treatment her clementina met with, he only said, he did not quite approve of it, and advised her not to oppose the young ladys being brought home, if the bishop and the general came into it: but he laid the whole matter before the bishop, who wrote to the general to join with him out of hand, to release their sister from her present bondage: and the general meeting the bishop on a set day at milan, for that purpose, the lady was accordingly released. a breach ensued upon it, with lady sforza and her daughter; who would have it, that clementina was much better for their management. they had by terror broke her spirit, and her passiveness was reckoned upon as an indication of amendment. the marchioness being much indisposed, the young lady, attended by her camilla, was carried to naples; where it is supposed she now is. poor young lady, how has she been hurried about!but who can think of her cousin laurana without extreme indignation? mrs. beaumont writes, that the bishop would fain have prevailed upon his brother, the general, to join with him in an invitation to sir charles grandison to come over, as a last expedient, before they locked her up either in a nunnery, or in some private house: but the general would by no means come into it. he asked, what was proposed to be the end of sir charless visit, were all that was wished from it to follow, in his sisters restored mind?he never, he said, would give his consent that she should be the wife of an english protestant. the bishop declared, that he was far from wishing her to be so: but he was for leaving that to afterconsideration. could they but restore his sister to her reason, that reason, cooperating with her principles, might answer all their hopes. he might try his expedient, the general said, with all his heart: but he looked upon the chevalier grandison to be a man of art; and he was sure he must have entangled his sister by methods imperceptible to her, and to them; but yet more efficacious to his ends, than an open declaration. had he not, he asked, found means to fascinate olivia, and as many women as he came into company with?for his part, he loved not the chevalier. he had forced him by his intrepidity to be civil to him: but forced civility was but a temporary one. it was his way to judge of causes by the effects: and this he knew, that he had lost a sister, who would have been a jewel in the crown of a prince; and would not be answerable for consequences, if he and sir charles grandison were once more to meet, be it where it would. father marescotti, however, joining, as the bishop writes, with him, and the marchioness, in a desire to try this expedient; and being sure that the marquis and signor jeronymo would not be averse to it, he took a resolution to write over to him, as has been related. this, lucy, is the state of the unhappy case, as briefly and as clearly as my memory will serve to give it. and what a rememberer, if i may make a word, is the heart!not a circumstance escapes it. and now it remained for me to know of sir charles what answer he had returned. was not my situation critical, my dear? had sir charles asked my opinion, before he had taken his resolutions, i should have given it with my whole heart, that he should fly to the comfort of the poor lady. but then he would have shewn a suspense unworthy of clementina; and a compliment to me; which a good man, so circumstanced, ought not to make. my regard for him (yet what a poor affected word is regard!) was, nevertheless, as strong as ever. generosity, or rather justice, to clementina, and that so often avowed regard to him, pulled my heart two ways.i wanted to consider with myself for a few moments: i was desirous to clear the conduct that i was to shew on this trying occasion, as well of precipitance as of affectation; and my cousin reeves just then coming in for something she wanted, i took the opportunity to walk to the other end of the room; and while a short complimental discourse passed between them, harriet byron, said i to myself, be not mean. hast thou not the example of a clementina before thee? her religion and her love, combating together, have overturned the noble creatures reason