From Twickenham Mary Berry, on October 21, 1795, wrote to her fiancée :

"After three or four hours of broken slumber, continually agitated with a false idea of seeing you the next day, I wake to the melancholy certainty of a long, uncertain, and painful absence. My dear friend, I find my mind much less strong than I believed it; and yet, in submitting to this absence, I think I am doing right. I am sure I am consulting the peace and happiness of those about me, and not my own. I think you will hereafter love me the better for knowing me capable of a sacrifice which you cannot now doubt how much I feel, and my future happiness (if any is in store for me) will be unsullied by the idea of having anticipated it at the expense of the feelings of others. But in the meantime you are gone and I am here, and my mind is not yet in a state to derive much comfort from cool reasoning. I feel now as if there were fifty things I should have liked to have said to you which my extreme and painful oppression prevented last night, and would, I am convinced still prevent, were you at this instant at my side. One idea, however, has so often recurred to me that I will mention it. As in every possible future event and circumstance I shall always be proud of your affection and sentiments for me, I beseech you, in case of illness or any danger, to send me, if possible, some token or assurance that you thought of me to the last as you do at this moment. If this is silly, forgive me. My mind will, I hope, soon recover its tone and then you shall have more comfortable letters from me-writing this has been a relief to me, and therefore I think must be some comfort to you. Let me hear from you from Portsmouth as soon as you can, I beseech you."

O'Hara obeyed Mary Berry's behest, and replied without delay :

"I am fully sensible, my Dearest Mary, that your letter ought, if I was a reasonable Being, to afford me much relief and comfort; but every moment of my existence proves, too forcibly for my peace, that comfort will be a stranger to my breast when absent from you, for I cannot, like you, from the imperfection of my nature, derive fortitude sufficient to sacrifice my own to the happiness of others. The delicacy of a mind and sensibility of heart like yours are alone equal to such a task, and tho', I assure you with much truth, I believe you are right, it will be in vain for me to profit by an example. Be fully persuaded que c'est beaucoup plus fort que moi. You have awakened my fears, and in some degree my curiosity, where you say, ' that you feel there were fifty things about you know not what, that you should liked to have said to me, which your painful oppression the night we parted prevented and would, you are convinced, still prevent, was I at your side.' As I always and ever shall act without reserve in every possible circumstance of my life that may affect you, and under the full persuasion that your confidence is as unbounded as mine-open your heart to me, be the consequences ever so injurious to my happiness, for you must know me but little, if you suppose me capable of putting your peace of mind in competition with my own. Your flattering solicitude (Mary, your tenderness undoes me; how very strange that what should sooth and comfort can at the same time excite such excessive anguish) that I should give you, in the event of illness or danger, some token that my sentiments respecting you continued the same as at present' makes too deep an impression for any language to express; would my heart was in your breast, for that alone could

make you sensible of the tender and affectionate regard of my dearest Mary's faithful friend.-CHA. O'HARA."

On the eve of his departure from Portsmouth, O'Hara wrote to Mary Berry on the subject of announcing the engagement—a matter upon which there had been some difference of opinion between them.

"I believe to have recommended your consulting our friend whether you should or not mention to Lord Orford our proposed connection," he said. "Upon reconsidering the matter, I would by no means have you think of it, for you owe to his affection, his friendship, and the very flattering distinction he has long, constantly, and most pointedly shown you, every degree of attention and even gratitude, and consequently to keep from him, as long as it is possible, the knowledge of an event that, separating you, will overwhelm him with sorrow and disappointment, and defeat all his views, and only substantial comfort he enjoys and probably wishes to live for. (My Dear Mary, thou art a most extraordinary creature.) In my opinion, the proper time to break it to him will be when you are at the eve of quitting your Father's house for mine, and that communication must be made by yourself. It will be childish in you, and not treating him with the deference and confidence I trust he deserves, to employ any body else. Il s'entend upon this occasion, as upon all others of emergency, the Dear Stick must, and I am sure will, give her friendly assistance, for, without her support, I am sure you would not be able to walk in or out of the Peer's room. I think I see you pale and trembling, thy dear delicate frame shook to pieces, hesitating what to do; and, when I put myself in your place, I feel most forcibly that upon this occasion your emotion must be great, and that reflection, when I consider the cause that agitates you,

makes me see my Dearest Mary in a point of view of all others the most interesting to my heart. Lord Orford will, for his own sake, as well as yours, receive your information kindly. You must, however, be prepared possibly for some sudden, peevish animadversions upon your marriage, some dictated by friendship, and others by resentment. Be that as it may, he has a claim upon your patient hearing, and possibly you may profit from the many truths he will lay before you, drawn from his long experience of the world. He will endeavour to prove, what with him admits of no doubt, the excessive folly of burning incense at any other shrines but those of Wealth and Birth. Poor me, I feel humbled to the dust when I think of either. And when he has talked himself out of arguments, which, à coup sûr, will not be till out of breath, preserve a respectful silence, for you will plead in vain to a judge who, being so differently composed as yourself, it is perfectly impossible you should understand each other. The Noble Earl takes glitter, show, and precedency-all very good things in their way as appendages, but not commanding featuresfor his guide. Thy sober, chaste mind builds its happiness (God forbid it prove delusive) upon being the comfort, the support, the warm disinterested friend of a Man who has nothing to give but reciprocal feelings. With all the respect and deference I really have for Lord Orford, and making every reasonable allowance for the claim he has upon your gratitude, if he is really your friend, unwarped by selfish considerations, he ought to rejoice at an event you contemplate with pleasure, he ought, from his knowledge of you, to think you perfectly competent to judge for yourself what are the qualities you wish the Man to possess to whom you give your Person and dedicate your time for life."

The correspondence continued for a while. Mary Berry believed that the day of marriage was close at hand; but the marriage was not to be. O'Hara no doubt felt aggrieved that his fiancée should put the feelings of another before his own, and in June 1796 the engagement was broken off. Alas, my dear friend, how have you trifled and doubted away both your own happiness and mine," Mary Berry wrote to him.

O'Hara, who remained at Gibraltar until his death in 1802, found consolation with two women, by each of whom he had a family. The shock to Mary Berry was enduring, but she never blamed her lover, nor would allow anyone else to do so. "I still believe," she said, "that, had this separation never taken place, I should never have had to complain of him nor he to doubt me." Miss Kate Perry, in her Reminiscences of a London Drawing-room, related how her dear friend, Mary Berry, towards the end of her life," one evening recounted the sad story of her engagement, so long ago in time, but fresh in her memory as if it were the tale of yesterday. She described her last interview with this fine-looking soldier, in the prime of his life, with such graphic power that his image seemed standing before us.” Mary Berry sealed up the correspondence, and some eight-andforty years after the engagement had been broken off, when she had passed the age of fourscore, she opened the packet and inserted the sad note that has been printed above.

Horace Walpole passed away in March 1797. To each of his sisters he left the sum of £4,000, and to them jointly, for their lives, the house and grounds and furniture of Strawberry Hill. He bequeathed his printed works and manuscripts to Robert Berry and his daughters, with discretionary powers to publish, Berry to be editor,