ft, what must he
not suffer on this occasion?

It is a painful consideration, my dear, that the happiness or misery
of our lives are generally determined before we are proper judges of
either.

Restrained by custom, and the ridiculous prejudices of the world, we
go with the crowd, and it is late in life before we dare to think.

How happy are you and I, Lucy, in having parents, who, far from
forcing our inclinations, have not even endeavored to betray us into
chusing from sordid motives! They have not labored to fill our young
hearts with vanity or avarice; they have left us those virtues, those
amiable qualities, we received from nature. They have painted to us the
charms of friendship, and not taught us to value riches above their
real price.

My father, indeed, checks a certain excess of romance which there is
in my temper; but, at the same time, he never encouraged my receiving
the addresses of any man who had only the gifts of fortune to recommend
him; he even advised me, when very young, against marrying an officer
in his regiment, of a large fortune, but an unworthy character.

If I have any knowledge of the human heart, it will be my own fault
if I am not happy with Fitzgerald.

I am only afraid, that when we are married, and begin to settle into
a calm, my volatile disposition will carry me back to coquetry: my
passion for admiration is naturally strong, and has been increased by
indulgence; for without vanity I have been extremely the taste of the
men.

I have a kind of an idea it won't be long before I try the strength
of my resolution, for I heard papa and Fitzgerald in high consultation
this morning.

Do you know, that, having nobody to love but Fitzgerald, I am ten
times more enamored of the dear creature than ever? My love is now like
the rays of the sun collected.

He is so much here, I wonder I don't grow tired of him; but somehow
he has the art of varying himself beyond any man I ever knew: it was
that agreable variety of character that first struck me; I considered
that with him I should have all the sex in one; he says the same of me;
and indeed, it must be owned we have both an infinity of agreable
caprice, which in love affairs is worth all the merit in the world.

Have you never observed, Lucy, that the same person is seldom
greatly the object of both love and friendship?

Those virtues which command esteem do not often inspire passion.

Friendship seeks the more real, more solid v