she had to deal with well enough to be satisfied, if once we came home again, time would bring about a reconciliation between my father and us, which she was resolved to prevent; and therefore, as she had gone so far, she thought herself now under a necessity to go through with it. Few people stop in the midst of villainies, as the first step is much the hardest to get over.
"Livia therefore, with the appearance of the greatest perturbation of mind, as if it was the utmost force to her in this case even to speak the truth, and with tears in her eyes, said things were now come to such an extremity, that in order to prevent her husband's having any suspicion of her giving his children any cause for their hatred, she was forced, against her will, to confess she knew the reason of our aversion to her. 'I have discovered a secret, my dear.'—Here she made a pause, and then desired to be excused from proceeding any further; but my father, whose soul was now on fire, insisted in the strongest manner on knowing the whole. She then with an affected confusion, and a low voice continued thus: 'I accidentally found out a secret which they feared I might one time or other discover; and therefore used all the methods they could invent to give your father an ill opinion of me, that if I told it, it might be disbelieved.' She then turned to him, and said, 'I ought to ask your pardon, sir, for so long concealing from you a thing which is of the utmost consequence to your family; but it was the fear of making you unhappy was the reason of it, and I could never bring myself to give you the pain you must have felt at the knowledge of it. Nay, nothing but your absolute commands, which I shall ever obey, could even now enforce me. It is now some time since I found out there was a criminal conversation between your son and daughter; to this was owing all that love they talked of to each
