pected back this three weeks.

I like our lodgings vastly; but more so as the master and mistress of
the family are excessively clean and obliging; two things so material to
my repose, that I absolutely could not dispense patiently with
either.--This it was which made me felicitous about taking a house; I am
now so happily situated, I wish not to have one in town whilst I remain
a batchelor. Heaven knows how long that will be!--Your nonpareil has
given me a dislike to all my former slight prepossessions.

Lady Elizabeth Curtis!--I did once indeed think a little seriously of
her:--but _such_ a meer girl!--Perhaps the time she has spent in France,
Germany, and the Lord knows where, may have changed her from a little
bewitching, smiling, artless creature--to a _vain, designing,
haughty_,--I could call a coquet by a thousand names;--but Lady
Elizabeth _can_-not, _must_ not be a coquet.--Cupid, though, shall never
tye a bandage over my eyes.--The charms that must fix me are not to be
borrow'd;--I shall look for them in her affection to her relations;--in
a condescending behaviour to inferiors;--above all, when she offers up
her first duties.--If she shines here, I shall not follow her to the
card-table, or play-house:--every thing must be right in a heart where
duty, affection, and humility, has the precedence.

The misfortune of our sex is this: when taken with a fine face, we
enquire no further than, Is she _polite?_--Is she _witty?_ Does she
_dance_ well?--sing well?--in short, _is_ she fit to appear in the _Beau
Monde_; whilst good sense and virtues which constitute real happiness,
are left out of the question.

How does beauty,--politeness--wit,--a fine voice,--a graceful movement,
charm!--But how often are we deceiv'd by them.--An instance of which I
have lately seen in our old friend Sir Harry. No man on earth can pity
that poor soul more than I do; yet I have laughed hours to think of his
mistake. _So mild--so gentle_--said he, George, a week before his
marriage, I should have said _execution_,--it is impossible to put her
out of humour.--If I am not the happiest man breathing, it must be my
own fault.

What was my astonishment when I call'd on him in my way to town, and
found this mild _gentle mate_ of his, aided by a houseful of her
relations, had not only deprived him of all right and authority in the
_Castle_, but almost of his very speech!

I dropt in about one, told the Baronet I came five miles out of my