Your brother and Emily danced together, and I think I never saw either of them look so handsome; she was a thousand times more admired at this ball than the first, and reason good, for she was a thousand times more agreable; your brother is really a charming fellow, he is an immense favorite with the ladies; he has that very pleasing general attention, which never fails to charm women; he can even be particular to one, without wounding the vanity of the rest:  if he was in company with twenty, his mistress of the number, his manner would be such, that every woman there would think herself the second in his esteem; and that, if his heart had not been unluckily pre-engaged, she herself should have been the object of his tenderness.

His eyes are of immense use to him; he looks the civilest things imaginable; his whole countenance speaks whatever he wishes to say; he has the least occasion for words to explain himself of any man I ever knew.

Fitzgerald has eyes too, I assure you, and eyes that know how to speak; he has a look of saucy unconcern and inattention, which is really irresistible.

We have had a great deal of snow already, but it melts away; ’tis a lovely day, but an odd enough mixture of summer and winter; in some places you see half a foot of snow lying, in others the dust is even troublesome.

Adieu! there are a dozen or two of beaux at the door.

      Yours,
          A. Fermor.

LETTER 41.

To Miss Rivers, Clarges Street.

Nov. 10.

The savages assure us, my dear, on the information of the beavers, that we shall have a very mild winter:  it seems, these creatures have laid in a less winter stock than usual.  I take it very ill, Lucy, that the beavers have better intelligence than we have.

We are got into a pretty composed easy way; Sir George writes very agreable, sensible, sentimental, gossiping letters, once a fortnight, which Emily answers in due course, with all the regularity of a counting-house correspondence; he talks of coming down after Christmas:  we expect him without impatience; and in the mean time amuse ourselves as well as we can, and soften the pain of absence by the attention of a man that I fancy we like quite as well.

With submission to the beavers, the weather is very cold, and we have had a great deal of snow already; but they tell me ’tis nothing to what we shall have:  they are taking precautions which make me shudder beforehand, pasting up the windows, and not leaving an avenue where cold can enter.