else of our sex: I believe in my
conscience he is in love with you. I think all the unprovided-for young
women, wherever you come, must hate you. Was you never by surprise
carried into the chamber of a friend labouring with the smallpox, in the
infectious stage of it?--O, but I think you once said you had had that
distemper. But your mind, Harriet, were your face to be ruined, would
make you admirers. The fellows who could think of preferring even such a
face to such a heart, may be turned over to the class of insignificants.

Is not your aunt Selby, you ask, an excellent woman?--She is. I admire
her. But I am very angry with you for deferring to another time,
acquainting me with what she said of me. When we are taken with any
body, we love they should be taken with us. Teasing Harriet! You know
what an immoderate quantity of curiosity I have. Never serve me so
again!

I am in love with your cousin Lucy. Were either Fenwick or Greville good
enough--But they are not. I think she shall have Mr. Orme. Nancy, you
say, is such another good girl. I don't doubt it. Is she not your
cousin, and Lucy's sister? But I cannot undertake for every good girl
who wants a husband. I wish I had seen Lucy a fortnight ago: then Nancy
might have had Mr. Orme, and Lucy should have had Lord G----. He admires
her greatly. And do you think that a man who at that time professed for
me so much love and service, and all that, would have scrupled to oblige
me, had I (as I easily should) proved to him, that he would have been a
much happier man than he could hope to be with somebody else?

Your uncle is a pleasant man: but tell him I say, that the man would be
out of his wits, that did not make the preference he does in favour of
his dame Selby, as he calls her. Tell him also, if you please, in return
for his plain dealing, that I say, he studies too much for his
pleasantries: he is continually hunting for occasions to be smart. I
have heard my father say, that this was the fault of some wits of his
acquaintance, whom he ranked among the witlings for it. If you think it
will mortify him more, you may tell him, (for I am very revengeful when I
think myself affronted,) that were I at liberty, which, God help me, I am
not! I would sooner choose for a husband the man I have, (poor soul, as I
now and then think him,) than such a teasing creature as himself, were
both in my power, and both of an age. And I should have this good reason
for my preference: