I send all yours and Temple’s letters for your brother to-day:  you may expect to hear from him by the same mail with this.

      I have only to say, I am,
          A. Fermor.

LETTER 143.

To Colonel Rivers, at Quebec.

London, April 8.

My own happiness, my dear Rivers, in a marriage of love, makes me extremely unwilling to prevent your giving way to a tenderness, which promises you the same felicity, with so amiable a woman as both you and Bell Fermor represent Miss Montague to be.

But, my dear Ned, I cannot, without betraying your friendship, and hazarding all the quiet of your future days, dispense with myself from telling you, though I have her express commands to the contrary, that the peace, perhaps the life, of your excellent mother, depends on your giving up all thoughts of a settlement in America, and returning immediately to England.

I know the present state of your affairs will not allow you to marry this charming woman here, without descending from the situation you have ever held, and which you have a right from your birth to hold, in the world.

Would you allow me to gratify my friendship for you, and shew, at the same time, your perfect esteem for me, by commanding, what our long affection gives you a right to, such a part of my fortune as I could easily spare without the least inconvenience to myself, we might all be happy, and you might make your Emily so:  but you have already convinced me, by your refusal of a former request of this kind, that your esteem for me is much less warm than mine for you; and that you do not think I merit the delight of making you happy.

I will therefore say no more on this subject till we meet, than that I have no doubt this letter will bring you immediately to us.

If the tenderness you express for Miss Montague is yet conquerable, it will surely be better for both it should be conquered, as fortune has been so much less kind to each of you than nature; but if your hearts are immoveably fixed on each other, if your love is of the kind which despises every other consideration, return to the bosom of friendship, and depend on our finding some way to make you happy.

If you persist in refusing to share my fortune, you can have no objection to my using all my interest, for a friend and brother so deservedly dear to me, and in whose happiness I shall ever find my own.

Allow me now to speak of myself; I mean of my dearer self, your amiable sister, for whom my tenderness, instead of decreasing, grows every moment stronger.

Yes, my friend, my sweet Lucy is every hour more an angel:  her desire of being beloved, renders her a thousand times more lovely; a countenance animated by true tenderness will always charm beyond all the dead uninformed features the hand of nature ever framed; love embellishes the whole form, gives spirit and softness to the eyes, the most vivid bloom to the complexion, dignity to the air, grace to every motion, and throws round beauty almost the rays of divinity.