eir congratulations upon it, must needs overbalance, with such
a one as me, the difference of persons, however preferable I might think
the one man to the other: that love was a fleeting thing, little better
than a name, where mortality and virtue did not distinguish the object
of it: that a choice made by its dictates was seldom happy; at least not
durably so: nor was it to be wondered at, when it naturally exalted the
object above its merits, and made the lover blind to faults, that were
visible to every body else: so that when a nearer intimacy stript it of
its imaginary perfections, it left frequently both parties surprised,
that they could be so grossly cheated; and that then the indifference
became stronger than the love ever was. That a woman gave a man great
advantages, and inspired him with great vanity, when she avowed her
love for him, and preference of him; and was generally requited with
insolence and contempt: whereas the confessedly-obliged man, it was
probable, would be all reverence and gratitude'--and I cannot tell what.

'You, my dear, said she, believe you shall be unhappy, if you have
Mr. Solmes: your parents think the contrary; and that you will be
undoubtedly so, were you to have Mr. Lovelace, whose morals are
unquestionably bad: suppose it were your sad lot to consider, what
great consolation you will have on one hand, if you pursue your parents'
advice, that you did so; what mortification on the other, that by
following your own, you have nobody to blame but yourself.'

This, you remember, my dear, was an argument enforced upon me by Mrs.
Norton.

These and other observations which she made were worthy of my aunt
Hervey's good sense and experience, and applied to almost any young
creature who stood in opposition to her parents' will, but one who had
offered to make the sacrifices I have offered to make, ought to have had
their due weight. But although it was easy to answer some of them in my
own particular case; yet having over and over, to my mother, before my
confinement, and to my brother and sister, and even to my aunt Hervey,
since, said what I must now have repeated, I was so much mortified and
afflicted at the cruel tidings she brought me, that however attentive I
was to what she said, I had neither power nor will to answer one word;
and, had she not stopped of herself, she might have gone on an hour
longer, without interruption from me.

Observing this, and that I only sat weeping, my