Judge then, if I would lightly wish to defer an event, which is to give me the transport of passing my life in the dear employment of making him happy.

I only entreat that you will decline asking me, till I judge proper to tell you, why I first begged our marriage might be deferred:  let it be till then forgot I ever made such a request.

You will not, my dear Rivers, refuse this proof of complaisance to her who too plainly shews she can refuse you nothing.

      Adieu!  Yours,
          Emily Montague.

LETTER 191.

To Miss Montague, Rose-hill, Berkshire.

Clarges Street, Sept. 21, Two o’clock.

Can you, my angel, forgive my insolent impatience, and attribute it to the true cause, excess of love?

Could I be such a monster as to blame my sweet Emily’s dear expressions of tenderness?  I hate myself for being capable of writing such a letter.

Be assured, I will strictly comply with all she desires:  what condition is there on which I would not make the loveliest of women mine?

I will follow the servant in two hours; I shall be at Rose-hill by eight o’clock.

    Adieu! my dearest Emily! 
        Your faithful
          Ed. Rivers.

LETTER 192.

To John Temple, Esq; Temple-house, Rutland.

Sept. 21, Nine at night.

The loveliest of women has consented to make me happy:  she remonstrated, she doubted; but her tenderness conquered all her reluctance.  To-morrow I shall call her mine.

We shall set out immediately for your house, where we hope to be the next day to dinner:  you will therefore postpone your journey to town a week, at the end of which we intend going to Bellfield.  Captain Fermor and Mrs. Fitzgerald accompany us down.  Emily’s relation, Mrs. H——­, has business which prevents her; and Fitzgerald is obliged to stay another month in town, to transact the affair of his majority.

Never did Emily look so lovely as this evening:  there is a sweet confusion, mixed with tenderness, in her whole look and manner, which is charming beyond all expression.

Adieu!  I have not a moment to spare:  even this absence from her is treason to love.  Say every thing for me to my mother and Lucy.

      Yours,
          Ed. Rivers.

LETTER 193.

To John Temple, Esq.  Temple-house, Rutland.

Rose-hill, Sept. 22, Ten o’clock.

She is mine, my dear Temple; and I am happy almost above mortality.

I cannot paint to you her loveliness; the grace, the dignity, the mild majesty of her air, is softened by a smile like that of angels:  her eyes have a tender sweetness, her cheeks a blush of refined affection, which must be seen to be imagined.