Sumner, the kind interest you will take in this
disastrous affair. I tremble to think what the event may be. To relieve
your suspense, however, I shall write you every circumstance as It
occurs; but at present, I shall only enclose Eliza's letters to her
mamma and me, and subscribe myself your sincere and obliged friend,
JULIA GRANBY.
LETTER LXVIII.
TO MRS. M. WHARTON.
TUESDAY.
My honored and dear mamma: In what words, in what language shall I
address you? What shall I say on a subject which deprives me of the
power of expression? Would to God I had been totally deprived of that
power before so fatal a subject required its exertion. Repentance comes
too late, when it cannot prevent the evil lamented: for your kindness,
your more than maternal affection towards me, from my infancy to the
present moment, a long life of filial duty and unerring rectitude could
hardly compensate. How greatly deficient in gratitude must I appear,
then, while I confess that precept and example, counsel and advice,
instruction and admonition, have been all lost upon me!
Your kind endeavors to promote my happiness have been repaid by the
inexcusable folly of sacrificing it. The various emotions of shame and
remorse, penitence and regret, which torture and distract my guilty
breast, exceed description. Yes, madam, your Eliza has fallen, fallen
indeed. She has become the victim of her own indiscretion, and of the
intrigue and artifice of a designing libertine, who is the husband of
another.
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