Dick will be in town with us most part of the winter:—­I have wrote him to that purpose, and mention’d your name.  He will rejoice to see you:—­I have often heard him regret your acquaintance was of so short standing.—­Bridgman set out for York the day before I arrived; his servants inform me he is not expected back this three weeks.

I like our lodgings vastly; but more so as the master and mistress of the family are excessively clean and obliging; two things so material to my repose, that I absolutely could not dispense patiently with either.—­This it was which made me felicitous about taking a house; I am now so happily situated, I wish not to have one in town whilst I remain a batchelor.  Heaven knows how long that will be!—­Your nonpareil has given me a dislike to all my former slight prepossessions.

Lady Elizabeth Curtis!—­I did once indeed think a little seriously of her:—­but such a meer girl!—­Perhaps the time she has spent in France, Germany, and the Lord knows where, may have changed her from a little bewitching, smiling, artless creature—­to a vain, designing, haughty,—­I could call a coquet by a thousand names;—­but Lady Elizabeth can-not, must not be a coquet.—­Cupid, though, shall never tye a bandage over my eyes.—­The charms that must fix me are not to be borrow’d;—­I shall look for them in her affection to her relations;—­in a condescending behaviour to inferiors;—­above all, when she offers up her first duties.—­If she shines here, I shall not follow her to the card-table, or play-house:—­every thing must be right in a heart where duty, affection, and humility, has the precedence.

The misfortune of our sex is this:  when taken with a fine face, we enquire no further than, Is she polite?—­Is she witty? Does she dance well?—­sing well?—­in short, is she fit to appear in the Beau Monde; whilst good sense and virtues which constitute real happiness, are left out of the question.

How does beauty,—­politeness—­wit,—­a fine voice,—­a graceful movement, charm!—­But how often are we deceiv’d by them.—­An instance of which I have lately seen in our old friend Sir Harry.  No man on earth can pity that poor soul more than I do; yet I have laughed hours to think of his mistake. So mild—­so gentle—­said he, George, a week before his marriage, I should have said execution,—­it is impossible to put her out of humour.—­If I am not the happiest man breathing, it must be my own fault.

What was my astonishment when I call’d on him in my way to town, and found this mild gentle mate of his, aided by a houseful of her relations, had not only deprived him of all right and authority in the Castle, but almost of his very speech!

I dropt in about one, told the Baronet I came five miles out of my way for the pleasure of saluting his bride, and to drink a bottle of claret with him.—­He was extremely glad to see me; and ventured to say so, before I was introduced to the Ladies:—­but I saw by his sneaking look, no such liberty must be taken in their presence.—­My reception was gracious enough, considering all communication is cut off between him and his former acquaintance.