Do not think you rest in security:—­tender insinuations from a man such as you describe Lord Darcey, may hurt your quiet.

I speak not from experience;—­Nature, by cloathing me in her plainest garb, has put all these hopes and fears far from me.

I have been ask’d, it is true, often, for my fortune;—­at least, I look upon asking for my heart to be the same thing.—­Sure, I could never be such a fool to part with the latter, when I well knew it was requested only to be put in possession of the former!

You think Jenkings suspects his son has a too tender regard for you;—­you think he is uneasy on that account.—­Perhaps he is uneasy;—­but time will convince you his suspicions, his uneasiness, proceed not from the cause you imagine.—­He is a good man; you cannot think too well of him.

I hope this letter will find you safe return’d to Hampshire.  I am preparing to leave the Spaw with all possible expedition:  I should quit it with reluctance, but for the prospect of visiting it again next summer, with my dear Fanny.

At Montpelier the winter will slide on imperceptibly:  many agreeable families will there join us from the Spaw, whose good-humour and chearful dispositions, together with plentiful draughts of the Pouhon Spring, have almost made me forget the last ten years I have dragg’d, on in painful sickness.

The family in which I have found most satisfaction, is Lord Hampstead’s:—­every way calculated to make themselves and others happy;—­such harmony is observed through the whole, that the mechanism of the individuals seem to be kept in order by one common wheel.—­I rejoice that I shall have an opportunity of introducing you to them.—­We have fixed to set out the same day for Montpelier.

Lady Elizabeth, the eldest daughter, has obligingly offer’d to travel in my coach, saying, she thought it would be dull for me to go alone.

It is impossible to say which of the two sisters, was it left to my choice, would be my companion, as both are superlatively pleasing.—­They possess, to a degree, what I so much admire in our sex;—­a peculiar softness in the voice and manner; yet not quite so sprightly, perhaps, as may be thought necessary for some misses started up in this age; but sufficient, I think, for those who keep within certain bounds.—­It requires an uncommon share of understanding, join’d with a great share of wit, to make a very lively disposition agreeable.  I allow, if these two ingredients are happily blended, none can chuse but admire, as well as be entertain’d with, such natural fine talents:—­on the contrary, where one sees a pert bold girl apeing such rare gifts, it is not only the most painful, but most absurd sight on earth.