Sir George, whose good-nature is in this instance almost without example, has been prevailed on by Mr. Melmoth to consent I should write to you before he leaves Montreal, and again offer you his hand, though rejected in a manner so very mortifying both to vanity and love.

He gives you a fortnight to consider his offer, at the end of which if you refuse him he sets out for England over the lakes.

Be assured, the man for whom it is too plain you have acted this imprudent part, is so far from returning your affection, that he is at this moment addressing another; I mean Madame Des Roches, a near relation of whose assured me that there was an attachment between them:  indeed it is impossible he could have thought of a woman whose fortune is as small as his own.  Men, Miss Montague, are not the romantic beings you seem to suppose them; you will not find many Sir George Claytons.

I beg as early an answer as is consistent with the attention so important a proposal requires, as a compliment to a passion so generous and disinterested as that of Sir George.  I am, my dear Emily,

      Your affectionate friend,
          E. Melmoth.

LETTER 92.

To Mrs. Melmoth, at Montreal.

Silleri, March 19.

I am sorry, my dear Madam, you should know so little of my heart, as to suppose it possible I could have broke my engagements with Sir George from any motive but the full conviction of my wanting that tender affection for him, and that lively taste for his conversation, which alone could have ensured either his felicity or my own; happy is it for both that I discovered this before it was too late:  it was a very unpleasing circumstance, even under an intention only of marrying him, to find my friendship stronger for another; what then would it have been under the most sacred of all engagements, that of marriage?  What wretchedness would have been the portion of both, had timidity, decorum, or false honor, carried me, with this partiality in my heart, to fulfill those views, entered into from compliance to my family, and continued from a false idea of propriety, and weak fear of the censures of the world?

The same reason therefore still subsisting, nay being every moment stronger, from a fuller conviction of the merit of him my heart prefers, in spite of me, to Sir George, our union is more impossible than ever.

I am however obliged to you, and Major Melmoth, for your zeal to serve me, though you must permit me to call it a mistaken one; and to Sir George, for a concession which I own I should not have made in his situation, and which I can only suppose the effect of Major Melmoth’s persuasions, which he might suppose were known to me, and an imagination that my sentiments for him were changed:  assure him of my esteem, though love is not in my power.

As Colonel Rivers never gave me the remotest reason to suppose him more than my friend, I have not the least right to disapprove his marrying:  on the contrary, as his friend, I ought to wish a connexion which I am told is greatly to his advantage.