Before he went, however, they contrived to meet, and were privately married; the marriage was known only to her brother, who was Willmott’s friend.

He left her in the care of her brother, who, under pretence of diverting her melancholy, and endeavoring to cure her passion, obtained leave of his father to take her with him to France.

She was there delivered of this child, and expired a few days after.

Her brother, without letting her family know the secret, educated the infant, as the daughter of a younger brother who had been just before killed in a duel in France; her parents, who died in a few years, were, almost in their last moments, informed of these circumstances, and made a small provision for the child.

In the mean time, Colonel Willmott, after experiencing a great variety of misfortunes for many years, during which he maintained a constant correspondence with his brother-in-law, and with no other person in Europe, by a train of lucky accidents, acquired very rapidly a considerable fortune, with which he resolved to return to England, and marry his daughter to me, as the only method to discharge fully his obligations to my grandfather, who alone, of all his family, had given him the least assistance when he left England.  He wrote to his daughter, letting her know his design, and directing her to meet him in London; but she is not yet arrived.

Six in the evening.

My mother and Emily went to Temple’s to dinner; they are to dress there, and I am to be surprized.

Seven.

Colonel Willmott is come:  he is an extreme handsome man; tall, well-made, with an air of dignity which one seldom sees; he is very brown, and, what will please Bell, has an aquiline nose:  he looks about fifty, but is not so much; change of climate has almost always the disagreable effect of adding some years to the look.

He is dressing, to accompany me to the masquerade; I must attend him:  I have only time to say,

      I am yours,
          Ed. Rivers.

LETTER 220.

To Mrs. Rivers, Bellfield, Rutland.

London, Nov. 18, twelve at night.

Who should I dine and sup with to-day, at a merchant’s in the city, but your old love, Sir George Clayton, as gay and amusing as ever!

What an entertaining companion have you lost, my dear Emily!

He was a little disconcerted at seeing me, and blushed extremely; but soon recovered his amiable, uniform insipidity of countenance, and smiled and simpered as usual.

He never enquired after you, nor even mentioned your name; being asked for a toast, I had the malice to give Rivers; he drank him, without seeming ever to have heard of him before.

The city misses admire him prodigiously, and he them; they are charmed with his beauty, and he with their wit.