sturbed mind.

In order to acquit myself of so heavy a charge as that of having
reserves to so dear a friend, I will acknowledge (and I thought I had
over-and-over) that it is owing to my particular situation, if Mr.
Lovelace appears to me in a tolerable light: and I take upon me to say,
that had they opposed to him a man of sense, of virtue, of generosity;
one who enjoyed his fortune with credit, who had a tenderness in his
nature for the calamities of others, which would have given a moral
assurance, that he would have been still less wanting in grateful
returns to an obliging spirit:--had they opposed such a man as this to
Mr. Lovelace, and been as earnest to have me married, as now they are,
I do not know myself, if they would have had reason to tax me with that
invincible obstinacy which they lay to my charge: and this whatever
had been the figure of the man; since the heart is what we women should
judge by in the choice we make, as the best security for the party's
good behaviour in every relation of life.

But, situated as I am, thus persecuted and driven, I own to you, that
I have now-and-then had a little more difficulty than I wished for, in
passing by Mr. Lovelace's tolerable qualities, to keep up my dislike to
him for his others.

You say, I must have argued with myself in his favour, and in his
disfavour, on a supposition, that I might possibly be one day his. I
own that I have: and thus called upon by my dearest friend, I will set
before you both parts of the argument.

And first, what occurred to me in his favour.

At his introduction into our family, his negative virtues were insisted
upon:--He was no gamester; no horse-racer; no fox-hunter; no drinker:
my poor aunt Hervey had, in confidence, given us to apprehend much
disagreeable evil (especially to a wife of the least delicacy) from a
wine-lover: and common sense instructed us, that sobriety in a man is
no small point to be secured, when so many mischiefs happen daily from
excess. I remember, that my sister made the most of this favourable
circumstance in his character while she had any hopes of him.

He was never thought to be a niggard; not even ungenerous: nor when
his conduct came to be inquired into, an extravagant, a squanderer: his
pride [so far was it a laudable pride] secured him from that. Then he
was ever ready to own his errors. He was no jester upon sacred things:
poor Mr. Wyerley's fault; who seemed to think there was wit in saying