You should not marry, Charlotte, till this wicked vein of humour and raillery is stopt.

I hope it will hold me till fifty.

Don’t say so, Charlotte—­Say rather that you hope it will hold you so long only as it may be thought innocent or inoffensive, by the man whom it will be your duty to oblige, and so long as it will bring no discredit to yourself.

Your servant, Goody Gravity!—­But what must be, must.  The man is bound to see it.  It will be all his own seeking.  He will sin with his eyes open.  I think he has seen enough of me to take warning.  All that I am concerned about is for the next week or fortnight.  He will be king all that time—­Yet, perhaps not quite all neither.  And I shall be his sovereign ever after, or I am mistaken.  What a deuse, shall a woman marry a man of talents not superior to her own, and forget to reward herself for her condescension?—­But, high-ho!—­There’s a sigh, Harriet.  Were I at home, I would either sing you a song, or play you a tune, in order to raise my own heart.

She besought me then, with great earnestness, to give her my company till the day arrived, and on the day.  You see, said she, that my brother has engagements till Monday.  Dear creature! support, comfort me—­Don’t you see my heart beat through my stays?—­If you love me, come to me to-morrow to breakfast; and leave me not for the whole time—­Are you not my sister, and the friend of my heart?  I will give you a month for it, upon demand.  Come, let us go down; I will ask the consent of both your cousins.

She did:  and they, with their usual goodness to me, cheerfully complied.

Sir Charles set out this morning to attend the triple marriages; dressed charmingly, his sister says.  I have made Miss Grandison promise to give me an account of such particulars, as, by the help of Saunders, and Sir Charles’s own relation, she can pick up.  All we single girls, I believe, are pretty attentive to such subjects as these; as what one day may be our own concern.

LETTER XVI

Miss Grandison, to miss Byron
Thursday night.

Unreasonable, wicked, cruel Byron!  To expect a poor creature, so near her execution, to write an account of other people’s behaviour in the same tremendous circumstances!  The matrimonial noose has hung over my head for some time past; and now it is actually fitted to my devoted neck.—­Almost choaked, my dear!—­This moment done hearing read, the firsts, seconds, thirds, fourths, to near a dozen of them—­Lord be merciful to us!—­And the villanous lawyer rearing up to me his spectacled nose, as if to see how I bore it!  Lord G——­ insulting me, as I thought, by his odious leers:  Lady Gertrude simpering; little Emily ready to bless herself—­How will the dear Harriet bear these abominable recitatives?—­ But I am now up stairs from them all, in order to recover my breath, and obey my Byron.