I thought well of Sir George; I saw him as the man destined to be my husband; I fancied he loved me, and that gratitude obliged me to a return; carried away by the ardor of my friends for this marriage, I rather suffered than approved his addresses; I had not courage to resist the torrent, I therefore gave way to it; I loved no other, I fancied my want of affection a native coldness of temper.  I felt a languid esteem, which I endeavored to flatter myself was love; but the moment I saw you, the delusion vanished.

Your eyes, my Rivers, in one moment convinced me I had a heart; you staid some weeks with us in the country:  with what transport do I recollect those pleasing moments! how did my heart beat whenever you approached me! what charms did I find in your conversation!  I heard you talk with a delight of which I was not mistress.  I fancied every woman who saw you felt the same emotions:  my tenderness increased imperceptibly without my perceiving the consequences of my indulging the dear pleasure of seeing you.

I found I loved, yet was doubtful of your sentiments; my heart, however, flattered me yours was equally affected; my situation prevented an explanation; but love has a thousand ways of making himself understood.

How dear to me were those soft, those delicate attentions, which told me all you felt for me, without communicating it to others!

Do you remember that day, my Rivers, when, sitting in the little hawthorn grove, near the borders of the river, the rest of the company, of which Sir George was one, ran to look at a ship that was passing:  I would have followed; you asked me to stay, by a look which it was impossible to mistake; nothing could be more imprudent than my stay, yet I had not resolution to refuse what I saw gave you pleasure:  I stayed; you pressed my hand, you regarded me with a look of unutterable love.

My Rivers, from that dear moment your Emily vowed never to be another’s:  she vowed not to sacrifice all the happiness of her life to a romantic parade of fidelity to a man whom she had been betrayed into receiving as a lover; she resolved, if necessary, to own to him the tenderness with which you had inspired her, to entreat from his esteem, from his compassion, a release from engagements which made her wretched.

My heart burns with the love of virtue, I am tremblingly alive to fame:  what bitterness then must have been my portion had I first seen you when the wife of another!

Such is the powerful sympathy that unites us, that I fear, that virtue, that strong sense of honor and fame, so powerful in minds most turned to tenderness, would only have served to make more poignant the pangs of hopeless, despairing love.

How blest am I, that we met before my situation made it a crime to love you!  I shudder at the idea how wretched I might have been, had I seen you a few months later.

I am just returned from a visit at a few miles distance.  I find a letter from my dear Bell, that she will be here to-morrow; how do I long to see her, to talk to her of my Rivers!