angry; but who cares? I will be angry
too.

Surely, my Fitzgerald--I allow Rivers all his merit; but
comparisons, my dear--

Both our fellows, to be sure, are charming creatures; and I would
not change them for a couple of Adonis's: yet I don't insist upon it,
that there is nothing agreable in the world but them.

You should remember, my dear, that beauty is in the lover's eye; and
that, however highly you may think of Rivers, every woman breathing has
the same idea of _the dear man_.

O heaven! I must tell you, because it will flatter your vanity about
your charmer.

I have had a letter from an old lover of mine at Quebec, who tells
me, Madame Des Roches has just refused one of the best matches in the
country, and vows she will live and die a batchelor.

'Tis a mighty foolish resolution, and yet I cannot help liking her
the better for making it.

My dear papa talks of taking a house near you, and of having a
garden to rival yours: we shall spend a good deal of time with him, and
I shall make love to Rivers, which you know will be vastly pretty.

One must do something to give a little variety to life; and nothing
is so amusing, or keeps the mind so pleasingly awake, especially in the
country, as the flattery of an agreable fellow.

I am not, however, quite sure I shall not look abroad for a flirt,
for one's friend's husband is almost as insipid as one's own.

Our romantic adventures being at an end, my dear; and we being all
degenerated into sober people, who marry and _settle_; we seem in
great danger of sinking into vegetation: on which subject I desire
Rivers's opinion, being, I know, a most exquisite enquirer into the
laws of nature.

Love is a pretty invention, but, I am told, is apt to mellow into
friendship; a degree of perfection at which I by no means desire
Fitzgerald's attachment for me to arrive on this side seventy.

What must we do, my dear, to vary our days?

Cards, you will own, are an agreable relief, and the least subject
to pall of any pleasures under the sun: and really, philosophically
speaking, what is life but an intermitted pool at quadrille?

I am interrupted by a divine colonel in the guards.

Adieu! Your faithful
A. Fitzgerald.

LETTER 228.

To Mrs. Fitzgerald.

Bellfield, Tuesday.

I accept your challenge, Bell; and am greatly mistaken if you find
me so very insipid as you are pleased to suppose.

Have no fear of falling into vegetation; not