Belford to Lovelace:

"_September 7._ I may as well try to write, since were I to go to bed I
should not sleep; and you may be glad to know the particulars of her
happy exit. All is now hushed and still. At four o'clock yesterday I was
sent for. Her cousin, Colonel Mordern, and Mrs. Smith were with her. She
was silent for a few minutes. Her breath grew shorter. Her sweet voice
and broken periods methinks still fill my ears, and never will be out of
my memory. 'Do you, sir,' turning her head towards me, 'tell your friend
that I forgive him, and I pray to God to forgive him. Let him know how
happily I die, and that such as my own I wish to be his last hour.'

"With a smile of charming serenity overspreading her face, she expired.

"Oh, Lovelace, but I can write no more."

* * * * *




Sir Charles Grandison


"Sir Charles Grandison, and the Honourable Miss Byron, in a
Series of Letters," published in 1753, was the third and last
of Samuel Richardson's novels. Like its predecessors, it is of
enormous length (it first appeared in seven volumes) and is
written in the form of a series of letters. The idea of the
author was to "present to the public, in Sir Charles