were written. I believe, to this day, that either my poor sister or
her father-confessor was the perpetrator of that act. The _fraus pia_ is
not yet extinct; and it is as inconvenient now as it was in popish times,
to tell the whole truth about saints, when they dare to say or do things
which will not quite fit into the formulae of their sect.
But what was to become of Susan? Though my uncle continued to her
the allowance which he had made to my mother, yet I was her natural
protector--and she was my only tie upon earth. Was I to lose her, too?
Might we not, after all, be happy together, in some little hole in Chelsea,
like Elia and his Bridget? That question was solved for me. She declined
my offers; saying, that she could not live with any one whose religious
opinions differed from her own, and that she had already engaged a room at
the house of a Christian friend; and was shortly to be united to that dear
man of God, Mr. Wigginton, who was to be removed to the work of the Lord in
Manchester.
I knew the scoundrel, but it would have been impossible for me to undeceive
her.
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