Adieu! and believe me,
      Yours,
          Ed. Rivers.

LETTER 52.

To Miss Rivers, Clarges Street.

Silleri, Jan. 9.

I begin not to disrelish the winter here; now I am used to the cold, I don’t feel it so much:  as there is no business done here in the winter, ’tis the season of general dissipation; amusement is the study of every body, and the pains people take to please themselves contribute to the general pleasure:  upon the whole, I am not sure it is not a pleasanter winter than that of England.

Both our houses and our carriages are uncommonly warm; the clear serene sky, the dry pure air, the little parties of dancing and cards, the good tables we all keep, the driving about on the ice, the abundance of people we see there, for every body has a carriole, the variety of objects new to an European, keep the spirits in a continual agreable hurry, that is difficult to describe, but very pleasant to feel.

Sir George (would you believe it?) has written Emily a very warm letter; tender, sentimental, and almost impatient; Mrs. Melmoth’s dictating, I will answer for it; not at all in his own composed agreable style.  He talks of coming down in a few days:  I have a strong notion he is coming, after his long tedious two years siege, to endeavor to take us by storm at last; he certainly prepares for a coup de main.  He is right, all women hate a regular attack.

Adieu for the present.

Monday, Jan. 12.

We sup at your brother’s to-night, with all the beau monde of Quebec:  we shall be superbly entertained, I know.  I am malicious enough to wish Sir George may arrive during the entertainment, because I have an idea it will mortify him; though I scarce know why I think so.  Adieu!

      Yours,
          A. Fermor.

LETTER 53.

To Miss Rivers, Clarges Street.

Jan. 13, Eleven o’clock.

We passed a most agreable evening with your brother, though a large company, which is seldom the case:  a most admirable supper, excellent wine, an elegant dessert of preserved fruits, and every body in spirits and good humor.

The Colonel was the soul of our entertainment:  amongst his other virtues, he has the companionable and convivial ones to an immense degree, which I never had an opportunity of discovering so clearly before.  He seemed charmed beyond words to see us all so happy:  we staid till four o’clock in the morning, yet all complained to-day we came away too soon.

I need not tell you we had fiddles, for there is no entertainment in Canada without them:  never was such a race of dancers.

One o’clock.

The dear man is come, and with an equipage which puts the Empress of Russia’s tranieau to shame.  America never beheld any thing so brilliant: