ABSTRACT
I EXPECTED and was prepared for your raillery, as well as your remonstrance. That to common minds, my attachment, my friendship for Gertrude, should appear as the effect of a very different spirit, I am by no means surprised. But from you, my friend! from you who ought to know me so well, from whom no sentiment of my heart has been concealed, for you to suppose me capable of weakness so nearly bordering on treachery, does, I own, grieve me. No, Harry, if I am at all acquainted with my own 410heart, and I have studied it in hopes of one day correcting its numerous faults; I feel for this young woman, lovely and fascinating as I own she is, nothing that a brother might not glory in feeling for a beloved sister. And I declare, upon the honour of a gentleman, that no thought injurious to the sweet and simple purity of her character, ever fixed itself on my mind.
