resting subject; she says, "she shall be most unhappy if this
report is true, though without the least right to complain of Colonel
Rivers, who never even hinted a word of any affection for her more
tender than friendship; that if her vanity, her self-love, or her
tenderness, have deceived her, she ought only to blame herself." She
added, "that she wished him to marry Madame Des Roches, if she could
make him happy;" but when she said this, an involuntary tear seemed to
contradict the generosity of her sentiments.

I beg your pardon, my dear, but my esteem for your brother is
greatly lessened; I cannot help fearing there is something in the
report, and that this is what Mrs. Melmoth meant when she mentioned his
having an attachment.

I shall begin to hate the whole sex, Lucy, if I find your brother
unworthy, and shall give Fitzgerald his dismission immediately.

I am afraid Mrs. Melmoth knows men better than we foolish girls do:
she said, he attached himself to Emily meerly from vanity, and I begin
to believe she was right: how cruel is this conduct! The man who from
vanity, or perhaps only to amuse an idle hour, can appear to be
attached where he is not, and by that means seduce the heart of a
deserving woman, or indeed of any woman, falls in my opinion very
little short in baseness of him who practises a greater degree of
seduction.

What right has he to make the most amiable of women wretched? a
woman who would have deserved him had he been monarch of the universal
world! I might add, who has sacrificed ease and affluence to her
tenderness for him?

You will excuse my warmth on such an occasion; however, as it may
give you pain, I will say no more.

Adieu!
Your faithful
A. Fermor.

LETTER 85.

To Miss Rivers, Clarges Street.

Kamaraskas, March 12.

I have met with something, my dear Lucy, which has given me infinite
uneasiness; Madame Des Roches, from my extreme zeal to serve her in an
affair wherein she has been hardly used, from my second visit, and a
certain involuntary attention, and softness of manner I have to all
women, has supposed me in love with her, and with a frankness I cannot
but admire, and a delicacy not to be described, has let me know I am
far from being indifferent to her.

I was at first extremely embarrassed; but when I had reflected a
moment, I considered that the ladies, though another may be the object,
always regard with a kind of complacency a ma