unfortunate
to have nothing in my own disposal, do not think I have any hand in
making settlements. People in my way are sold like slaves; and I cannot
tell what price my master will put on me. If you do agree, I shall
endeavour to contribute, as much as lies in my power, to your happiness.
I so heartily despise a great figure, I have no notion of spending money
so foolishly; though one had a great deal to throw away. If this breaks
off, I shall not complain of you: and as, whatever happens, I shall
still preserve the opinion you have behaved yourself well. Let me
entreat you, if I have committed any follies, to forgive them; and be so
just to think I would not do an ill thing."

Shortly afterwards, Lady Mary wrote again to Montagu. "I have tried to
write plainly," she said; and she did not have to reproach herself with
failure. It had now come to a struggle for mastery, and she would not
yield a foot of her ground.

"Indeed I do not at all wonder that absence, and variety of new faces,
should make you forget me; but I am a little surprised at your curiosity
to know what passes in my heart (a thing wholly insignificant to you),
except you propose to yourself a piece of ill-natured satisfaction, in
finding me very much disquieted. Pray which way would you see into my
heart? You can frame no guesses about it from either my speaking or
writing; and, supposing I should attempt to show it you, I know no other
way.

"I begin to be tired of my humility: I have carried my complaisances to
you farther than I ought. You make new scruples; you have a great deal
of fancy; and your distrusts being all of your own making, are more
immovable than if there was some real ground for them. Our aunts and
grandmothers always tell us that men are a sort of animals, that, if
they are constant, 'tis only where they are ill used. 'Twas a kind of
paradox I could never believe: experience has taught me the truth of it.
You are the first I ever had a correspondence with, and I thank God I
have done with it for all my life. You needed not to have told me you
are not what you have been: one must be stupid not to find a difference
in your letters. You seem, in one part of your last, to excuse yourself
from having done me any injury in point of fortune. Do I accuse you of
any?

"I have not spirits to dispute any longer with you. You say you are not
yet determined: let me determine for you, and save you the trouble of
writing again. Adieu for