sewhere; that cannot be done. I am still too resolved to
be honest, if she'll give me hope: if yet she'll let me be honest. But
I'll see how she'll be after the contention she will certainly have
between her resentment and the terror she has reason for from our last
conversation. So let this subject rest till the morning. And to the old
peer once more.

I shall have a good deal of trouble, I reckon, though no sordid man, to
be decent on the expected occasion. Then how to act (I who am no
hypocrite) in the days of condolement! What farces have I to go through;
and to be the principal actor in them! I'll try to think of my own
latter end; a gray beard, and a graceless heir; in order to make me
serious.

Thou, Belford, knowest a good deal of this sort of grimace; and canst
help a gay heart to a little of the dismal. But then every feature of
thy face is cut out for it. My heart may be touched, perhaps, sooner
than thine; for, believe me or not, I have a very tender one. But then,
no man looking into my face, be the occasion for grief ever so great,
will believe that heart to be deeply distressed.

All is placid, easy, serene, in my countenance. Sorrow cannot sit half
an hour together upon it. Nay, I believe, that Lord M.'s recovery,
should it happen, would not affect me above a quarter of an hour. Only
the new scenery, (and the pleasure of aping an Heraclitus to the family,
while I am a Democritus among my private friends,) or I want nothing that
the old peer can leave me. Wherefore then should grief sadden and
distort such blythe, such jocund, features as mine?

But as for thine, were there murder committed in the street, and thou
wert but passing by, the murderer even in sight, the pursuers would
quit him, and lay hold of thee: and thy very looks would hang, as well
as apprehend thee.

But one word to business, Jack. Whom dealest thou with for thy blacks?--
Wert thou well used?--I shall want a plaguy parcel of them. For I intend
to make every soul of the family mourn--outside, if not in.

LETTER XXXIII

MR. LOVELACE, TO JOHN BELFORD, ESQ.
JUNE 23, FRIDAY MORNING.

I went out early this morning, on a design that I know not yet whether
I shall or shall not pursue; and on my return found Simon Parsons, my
Lord's Berkshire bailiff, (just before arrived,) waiting for me with a
message in form, sent by all the family, to press me to go down, and
that at my Lord's particular desire, who wants to