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
i