The next morning Lord Darcey introduc’d to us the son of Mr. Jenkings.—­A finer youth I never saw!—­Well might the old gentleman be suspicious.—­Few fathers would, like him, have sacrificed the interest of a son, to preserve that of a friend.—­To know the real rank of Miss Powis;—­her ten thousand virtues;—­her great expectations; yet act with so much caution!—­with an anxiety which the most sordid miser watching his treasure, could not have exceeded! and for what?—­Why lest involuntarily she might enrich his belov’d son with her affections.—­Will you part with me to this extraordinary man?—­Only for an hour or two.—­A walk is propos’d.—­Our ramble will not be farther than his house.—­You say I may go.  Thank you, Madam:  I am gone.

Just return’d from the steward’s, so cramm’d with sweet-meats, cake, and jellies, that I am absolutely stupified.

I must tell you who led Miss Powis.—­Lord Darcey, to be sure.—­No, Madam; I had the favour of his Lordship’s arm:—­it was Edmund.—­I call him Edmund;—­every body calls him Edmund;—­yes, and at Lord Darcey’s request too.—­Never shall I forget in what a graceful manner!—­But his Lordship does every thing with grace.—­He mention’d something of past times, hinting he should not always have courted him to such honour, presenting the hand of his belov’d.

I wish I could send you her look at that moment; it was all love,—­all condescension.—­I say I cannot send it.—­Mortifying!  I cannot even borrow it.

Adieu, dear Madam!—­Adieu, dear Sir!—­Adieu, you best of parents—­It is impossible to say which is most dear to your ever dutiful and affectionate

E. DELVES.

LETTER XLIV.

Miss DELVES to the same.

Barford Abbey.

Lost my heart again!—­Be not surpriz’d, Madam; I lose and find it ten times a day;—­yet it never strays from Barford Abbey.—­The last account you had from me it was button’d inside Mr. Morgan’s hunting-frock:—­since that, it has been God knows with whom:—­sometimes wrapt in a red coat;—­sometimes in a blue;—­sometimes in a green:—­but finding many competitors flew to black, where it now lies snug, warm, and easy.—­Restless creature!  I will never take it home again.

What think you, Madam, of a Dean for a son-in-law?

What do I think? you say.—­Why the gentlemen of the church have too much sense and gravity to take my madcap off my hands.—­Well, Madam, but suppose the Dean of H——­ now you look pleas’d.—­Oh, the Dean of H——! What the Dean, Bessy, that Lady Mary used to talk of:—­the Dean that married Mr. and Mrs. Powis.

As sure as I live, Madam, the very man:—­and to-morrow,—­to-morrow at ten, he is to unite their lovely daughter with Lord Darcey.—­Am I not very good,—­extremely good, indeed, to sit down and write,—­when every person below is solacing themselves on the approach of this happy festival?