Adieu! my dear! we set out early in the morning for Montreal.

      Your affectionate
          Ed. Rivers.

LETTER 18.

To Miss Rivers, Clarges Street.

Montreal, Sept. 19, eleven o’clock.

No, my dear, it is impossible she can love him; his dull soul is ill suited to hers; heavy, unmeaning, formal; a slave to rules, to ceremony, to etiquette, he has not an idea above those of a gentleman usher.  He has been three hours in town without seeing her; dressing, and waiting to pay his compliments first to the general, who is riding, and every minute expected back.  I am all impatience, though only her friend, but think it would be indecent in me to go without him, and look like a design of reproaching his coldness.  How differently are we formed!  I should have stole a moment to see the woman I loved from the first prince in the universe.

The general is returned.  Adieu! till our visit is over; we go from thence to Major Melmoth’s, whose family I should have told you are in town, and not half a street from us.  What a soul of fire has this lover! ’Tis to profane the word to use it in speaking of him.

One o’clock.

I am mistaken, Lucy; astonishing as it is, she loves him; this dull clod of uninformed earth has touched the lively soul of my Emily.  Love is indeed the child of caprice; I will not say of sympathy, for what sympathy can there be between two hearts so different?  I am hurt, she is lowered in my esteem; I expected to find in the man she loved, a mind sensible and tender as her own.

I repeat it, my dear Lucy, she loves him; I observed her when we entered the room; she blushed, she turned pale, she trembled, her voice faltered; every look spoke the strong emotion of her soul.

She is paler than when I saw her last; she is, I think, less beautiful, but more touching than ever; there is a languor in her air, a softness in her countenance, which are the genuine marks of a heart in love; all the tenderness of her soul is in her eyes.

Shall I own to you all my injustice?  I hate this man for having the happiness to please her:  I cannot even behave to him with the politeness due to every gentleman.

I begin to fear my weakness is greater than I supposed.

22d in the evening.

I am certainly mad, Lucy; what right have I to expect!—­you will scarce believe the excess of my folly.  I went after dinner to Major Melmoth’s; I found Emily at piquet with Sir George:  can you conceive that I fancied myself ill used, that I scarce spoke to her, and returned immediately home, though strongly pressed to spend the evening there.  I walked two or three times about my room, took my hat, and went to visit the handsomest Frenchwoman at Montreal, whose windows are directly opposite to Major Melmoth’s; in the excess of my anger, I asked this lady to dance with me to-morrow at a little ball we are to have out of town.  Can you imagine any behaviour more childish?  It would have been scarce pardonable at sixteen.