will venture to say.

Lord M. Then what a devil---

Lovel. Please to read on, my Lord. It cannot be her letter, if it does
not make you admire her more and more as you read. Cousin Charlotte,
Cousin Patty, pray attend----Read on, my Lord.

Miss Charlotte. Amazing fortitude!

Miss Patty only lifted up her dove's eyes.

Lord M. [Reading.] 'And the rather, as I was determined, had it come
to effect, to do every thing in my power to deserve your favourable
opinion.'

Then again they chorus'd upon me!

A blessed time of it, poor I!--I had nothing for it but impudence!

Lovel. Pray read on, my Lord--I told you how you would all admire her
----or, shall I read?

Lord M. D----d assurance! [Then reading.] 'I had another motive,
which I knew would of itself give me merit with your whole family: [they
were all ear:] a presumptuous one; a punishably-presumptuous one, as it
has proved: in the hope that I might be an humble mean, in the hand of
Providence, to reclaim a man who had, as I thought, good sense enough at
bottom to be reclaimed; or at least gratitude enough to acknowledge the
intended obligation, whether the generous hope were to succeed or not.'
--Excellent young creature!--

Excellent young creature! echoed the Ladies, with their handkerchiefs at
their eyes, attended with music.

Lovel. By my soul, Miss Patty, you weep in the wrong place: you shall
never go with me to a tragedy.

Lady Betty. Hardened wretch.

His Lordship had pulled off his spectacles to wipe them. His eyes were
misty; and he thought the fault in his spectacles.

I saw they were all cocked and primed--to be sure that is a very pretty
sentence, said I----that is the excellency of this lady, that in every
line, as she writes on, she improves upon herself. Pray, my Lord,
proceed--I know her style; the next sentence will still rise upon us.

Lord M. D----d fellow! [Again saddling, and reading.] 'But I have
been most egregiously mistaken in Mr. Lovelace!' [Then they all
clamoured again.]--'The only man, I persuade myself'----

Lovel. Ladies may persuade themselves to any thing: but how can she
answer for what other men would or would not have done in the same
circumstances?

I was forced to say any thing to stifle their outcries. Pox take ye
altogether, thought I; as if I had not vexation enough in losing her!

Lord M. [Reading.] 'The only man, I persuade myself, pretending to be
a gentleman, in whom I