Harlowe; and gave him orders to use the utmost dispatch with them.

The Colonel and I have bespoke mourning for our selves and servants.



LETTER XIII

MR. BELFORD, TO ROBERT LOVELACE, ESQ.
SAT. TEN O'CLOCK.


Poor Mrs. Norton is come. She was set down at the door; and would have
gone up stairs directly. But Mrs. Smith and Mrs. Lovick being together
and in tears, and the former hinting too suddenly to the truly-venerable
woman the fatal news, she sunk down at her feet in fits; so that they
were forced to breath a vein to bring her to herself, and to a capacity
of exclamation; and then she ran on to Mrs. Lovick and me, who entered
just as she recovered, in praise of the lady, in lamentations for her,
and invectives against you; but yet so circumscribed were her invectives,
that I could observe in them the woman well educated, and in her
lamentations the passion christianized, as I may say.

She was impatient to see the corpse. The women went up with her. But
they owned that they were too much affected themselves on this occasion
to describe her extremely-affecting behaviour.

With trembling impatience she pushed aside the coffin-lid. She bathed
the face with her tears, and kissed her cheeks and forehead, as if she
were living. It was she indeed! she said; her sweet young lady! her very