I left not, however, your fame to a weak champion: my mother defended
it with all the spirit of truth, and all the confidence of similar
virtue! yet they parted without conviction, and so mutually irritated
with each other, that they agreed to meet no more.

This was too terrible! and I instantly consolidated my resentment to my
father, and my gratitude to my mother, into concessions and
supplications to both; I could not, however, succeed; my mother was
deeply offended, my father was sternly inexorable: nor here rests the
evil of their dissention, for the violence of the conflict has
occasioned a return more alarming than ever of the illness of my
mother.

All her faith in her recovery is now built upon going abroad; she is
earnest to set off immediately; but Dr Lyster has advised her to make
London in her way, and have a consultation of physicians before she
departs.

To this she has agreed; and we are now upon the road thither.

Such is, at present, the melancholy state of my affairs. My mother
_advised_ me to write; forgive me, therefore, that I waited not
something more decisive to say. I could prevail upon neither party to
meet before the journey; nor could I draw from my father the base
fabricator of the calumnies by which he has been thus abused.

Unhappily, I have nothing more to add: and whether intelligence, such
as this, or total suspense, would be least irksome, I know not. If my
mother bears her journey tolerably well, I have yet one more effort to