P. S. I have promised my dearest Esther a Volume– & here it is: I am at this moment quite well– so are my Alexanders. Read, therefore, this narrative at your leisure, & without emotion--for all has ended happily. I will send the rest by the very first opportunity: I seize this present with eagerness– oh let none– none pass by that may bring me a return!– I have no more yet written.

Separated as I have now so long—long been from my dearest Father—Brothers—Sisters— Nieces, and Native Friends, I would spare, at least, their kind hearts any grief for me but what they must inevitably feel in reflecting upon the sorrow of such absence to one so tenderly attached to all her first and for-ever so dear and regretted ties—nevertheless, if they should hear that I have been dangerously ill from any hand but my own, they might have doubts of my perfect recovery which my own alone can obviate. And how can I hope they will escape hearing what has reached Seville to the South, and Constantinople to the East? from both I have had messages—yet nothing could urge me to this communication till I heard that M. de Boinville had written it to his Wife, without any precaution, because in ignorance of my plan of silence. Still I must hope it may never travel to my dearest Father—But to You, my beloved Esther, who, living more in the World, will surely hear it ere long, to you I will write the whole history, certain that, from the moment you know any evil has befallen me your kind kind heart will be constantly anxious to learn its extent and its circumstances, as well as its termination.

About August, in the year 1810, I began to by annoyed by a small pain in my breast, which went on augmenting from week to week, yet, being rather heavy than acute, without causing me any uneasiness with respect to consequences: Alas, “what was ignorance?” The most sympathising of Partners, however, was more disturbed: not a start, not a wry face, not a movement that indicated pain was unobserved, and he early conceived apprehensions to which I was a stranger. He pressed me to see some Surgeon; I revolted from the idea, and hoped, by care and warmth, to make all succour unnecessary. Thus passed some months, during which Madame de Maisonneuve, my particularly intimate friend, joined with M. d’Arblay to press me to consent to an examination. I thought their fears groundless, and could not make so great a conquest over my repugnance. I relate this false confidence, now, as a warning to my dear Esther—my Sisters and Nieces, should any similar sensations excite similar alarm.

M. d’Arblay now revealed his uneasiness to another of our kind friends, Mme de Tracy, who wrote to me a long and eloquent Letter upon the subject, that began to awaken very unpleasant surmizes: and a conference with her ensued, in which her urgency and representations, aided by her long experience of disease, and most miserable existence by art, subdued me, and, most painfully and reluctantly, I ceased to object, and M. d’Arblay summoned a physician—M. Bourdois? Maria will cry;—No, my dear Maria, I would not give your beau frere that trouble; not him, but Dr Jouart, the physician of Miss. Potts. Thinking but slightly of my statement, he gave me