p a day that had
been proposed for the private celebration of our nuptials; and of my
letters* written to her on that subject;' for I had stepped to my closet,
and fetched down all the letters and draughts and copies of letters
relating to this affair.

* See Vol. VI. Letters XXXVII. XXXVIII. XXXIX. XLIII.

I read to him, 'several passages in the copies of those letters, which,
thou wilt remember, make not a little to my honour.' And I told him,
'that I wished I had kept copies of those to my friend on the same
occasion; by which he would have seen how much in earnest I was in my
professions to her, although she would not answer one of them;' and thou
mayest remember, that one of those four letters accounted to herself why
I was desirous she should remain where I had left her.*

* See Vol. VI. Letter XXXVII.

I then proceeded to give him an account 'of the visit made by Lady Sarah
and Lady Betty to Lord M. and me, in order to induce me to do her
justice: of my readiness to comply with their desires; and of their high
opinion of her merit: of the visit made to Miss Howe by my cousins
Montague, in the name of us all, to engage her interest with her friend
in my behalf: of my conversation with Miss Howe, at a private assembly,
to whom I gave the same assurances, and besought her interest with her
friend.'

I then read a copy of the letter (though so much to my disadvantage)
which was written to her by Miss Charlotte Montague, Aug. 1,* entreating
her alliance in the names of all our family.

* See Vol. VII. Letter LXVI.

This made him ready to think that his fair cousin carried her resentment
against me too far. He did not imagine, he said, that either myself or
our family had been so much in earnest.

So thou seest, Belford, that it is but glossing over one part of a story,
and omitting another, that will make a bad cause a good one at any time.
What an admirable lawyer should I have made! And what a poor hand would
this charming creature, with all her innocence, have made of it in a
court of justice against a man who had so much to say and to show for
himself!

I then hinted at the generous annual tender which Lord M. and his sisters
made to his fair cousin, in apprehension that she might suffer by her
friends' implacableness.

And this also the Colonel highly applauded, and was pleased to lament the
unhappy misunderstanding between the two families, which had made the
Harlowes less fond of an