NG:
and, indeed, I believe, the next place in her heart is mine: and that
she would be miserable without me. Dearest! something TELLS ME we shall
conquer. You shall leave that odious regiment: quit gaming, racing,
and BE A GOOD BOY; and we shall all live in Park Lane, and ma tante
shall leave us all her money.

I shall try and walk to-morrow at 3 in the usual place. If Miss B.
accompanies me, you must come to dinner, and bring an answer, and put
it in the third volume of Porteus's Sermons. But, at all events, come
to your own

R.

To Miss Eliza Styles, At Mr. Barnet's, Saddler, Knightsbridge.

And I trust there is no reader of this little story who has not
discernment enough to perceive that the Miss Eliza Styles (an old
schoolfellow, Rebecca said, with whom she had resumed an active
correspondence of late, and who used to fetch these letters from the
saddler's), wore brass spurs, and large curling mustachios, and was
indeed no other than Captain Rawdon Crawley.

CHAPTER XVI

The Letter on the Pincushion

How they were married is not of the slightest consequence to anybody.
What is to hinder a Captain who is a major, and a young lady who is of
age, from purchasing a licence, and uniting themselves at any church in
this town? Who needs to be told, that if a woman has a will she will
assuredly find a way?--My belief is that one day, when Miss Sharp had
gone to pass the forenoon with her dear friend Miss Amelia Sedley in
Russell Square, a lady very like her might have been seen entering a
church in the City, in company with a gentleman with dyed mustachios,
who, after a quarter of an hour's interval, escorted her back to the
hackney-coach in waiting, and that this was a quiet bridal party.

And who on earth, after the daily experience we have, can question the
probability of a gentleman marrying anybody? How many of the wise and
learned have married their cooks? Did not Lord Eldon himself, the most
prudent of men, make a runaway match? Were not Achilles and Ajax both
in love with their servant maids? And are we to expect a heavy dragoon
with strong desires and small brains, who had never controlled a
passion in his life, to become prudent all of a sudden, and to refuse
to pay any price for an indulgence to which he had a mind? If people
only made prudent marriages, what a stop to population there would be!

It seems to me, for my part, that Mr. Rawdon's marriage was one of the
honestest actions which w