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EVELINA.

would fain cast upon another the odium of those misfortunes for which she alone is answerable. Her letter is violent, sometimes abusive, and that of you!—you, to whom she is under obligations which are greater even than her faults, but to whose advice she wickedly imputes all the sufferings of her much-injured daughter, the late Lady Belmont. The chief purport of her writing I will acquaint you with; the letter itself is not worthy your notice.

She tells me that she has, for many years past, been in continual expectation of making a journey to England, which prevented her writing for information concerning this melancholy subject, by giving her hopes of making personal enquiries; but family occurrences have still detained her in France, which country she now sees no prospect of quitting. She has, therefore, lately used her utmost endeavours to obtain a faithful account of whatever related to her ill-advised daughter; the result of which giving her some reason to apprehend that, upon her death-bed, she bequeathed an infant orphan to the world, she most graciously says that if you, with whom she understands the child is placed, will procure authentic proofs of its relationship to her, you may send it to Paris, where she will properly provide for it.

This