Reflect upon this, I beseech you. I should add that I have said nothing
of this project to your lover. The decision rests with you and you
alone.


FROM JULIE TO MYLORD EDOUARD

Your letter, mylord, fills me with gratitude and admiration. It would
indeed be joy for me to gain happiness under the auspices of so generous
a friend, and to procure from his kindness the contentment that fortune
has denied me.

But could contentment ever be granted to me if I had the consciousness
of having pitilessly abandoned those who gave me birth? I am their only
living child; all their pleasure, all their hope is in me. Can I deliver
up their closing days to shame, regrets, and tears? No, mylord,
happiness could not be bought at such a price. I dare brave all the
sorrows that await me here; remorse I dare not brave.


FROM JULIE TO HER LOVER

I have just returned from the wedding of Claire and M. d'Orbe. You will,
I know, share my pleasure in the happiness of our dearest friend; and
such is the worth of the friendship that joins us, that the good fortune
of one of us should be a real consolation for the sorrows of the other
two.

Continue to write me from Paris, but let me tell you that I am not
pleased with the bitterness of your letters--a bitterness unworthy of my