, makes me very
importunate to know how you approve the gentleman, whom some of your
best friends and well-wishers have recommended to your favour. I hope
he will deserve your good opinion, and then he must excel most of the
unmarried gentlemen in England.

Your papa, in his humourous manner, mentions his large possessions and
riches; but were he as rich as Croesus, he should not have my consent,
if he has no greater merit; though that is what the generality of
parents look out for first; and indeed an easy fortune is so far from
being to be disregarded, that, when attended with equal merit, I think
it ought to have a _preference_ given to it, supposing affections
disengaged. For 'tis certain, that a man or woman may stand as good a
chance for happiness in marriage with a person of fortune, as with one
who has not that advantage; and notwithstanding I had neither riches
nor descent to boast of, I must be of opinion with those who say, that
they never knew any body despise either, that had them. But to permit
riches to be the _principal_ inducement, to the neglect of superior
merit, that is the fault which many a one smarts for, whether the
choice be their own, or imposed upon them by those who have a title to
their obedience.

Here is a saucy body, might some who have not Miss Darnford's kind
consideration for her friend, be apt to say, who being thus meanly
descended, nevertheless presumes to give her opinion, in these high
cases, unasked.--But I have this to say; that I think myself so
entirely divested of partiality to my own case, that, as far as my
judgment shall permit, I will never have that in view, when I am
presuming to hint my opinion of general rules. For, most surely, the
honours I have received, and the debasement to which my best friend
had subjected himself, have, for their principal excuse, that the
gentleman was entirely independent, had no questions to ask, and had
a fortune sufficient to make himself, as well as the person he
chose, happy, though she brought him nothing at all; and that he had,
moreover, such a character for good sense, and knowledge of the world,
that nobody could impute to him any other inducement, but that of a
noble resolution to reward a virtue he had so frequently, and, I will
say, so wickedly, tried, and could not subdue.

My dear Miss, let me, as a subject very pleasing to me, touch upon
your kind mention of the worthy Mr. Peters's sentiments to that
part of his conduct t