Emily has sent for me to her apartment.  Adieu for a moment.

Eleven o’clock.

She has shewn me Mrs. Melmoth’s letter on the subject of concluding the marriage immediately:  it is in the true spirit of family impertinence.  She writes with the kind discreet insolence of a relation; and Emily has answered her with the genuine spirit of an independent Englishwoman, who is so happy as to be her own mistress, and who is therefore determined to think for herself.

She has refused going to Montreal at all this winter; and has hinted, though not impolitely, that she wants no guardian of her conduct but herself; adding a compliment to my ladyship’s discretion so very civil, it is impossible for me to repeat it with decency.

O Heavens! your brother and Fitzgerald!  I fly.  The dear creatures! my life has been absolute vegetation since they absented themselves.

    Adieu! my dear,
      Your faithful
          A. Fermor.

LETTER 56.

To Miss Rivers, Clarges Street.

Silleri, Jan. 24.

We have the same parties and amusements we used to have, my dear, but there is by no means the same spirit in them; constraint and dullness seem to have taken the place of that sweet vivacity and confidence which made our little society so pleasing:  this odious man has infected us all; he seems rather a spy on our pleasures than a partaker of them; he is more an antidote to joy than a tall maiden aunt.

I wish he would go; I say spontaneously every time I see him, without considering I am impolite, “La!  Sir George, when do you go to Montreal?” He reddens, and gives me a peevish answer; and I then, and not before, recollect how very impertinent the question is.

But pray, my dear, because he has no taste for social companionable life, has he therefore a right to damp the spirit of it in those that have?  I intend to consult some learned casuist on this head.

He takes amazing pains to please in his way, is curled, powdered, perfumed, and exhibits every day in a new suit of embroidery; but with all this, has the mortification to see your brother please more in a plain coat.  I am lazy.  Adieu!

      Yours, ever and ever,
          A. Fermor.

LETTER 57.

To John Temple, Esq; Pall Mall.

Jan. 25.

So you intend, my dear Jack, to marry when you are quite tired of a life of gallantry:  the lady will be much obliged to you for a heart, the refuse of half the prostitutes in town; a heart, the best feelings of which will be entirely obliterated; a heart hardened by a long commerce with the most unworthy of the sex; and which will bring disgust, suspicion, coldness, and depravity of taste, to the bosom of sensibility and innocence.