Reflect, what a task is mine, thus to lay disagreeable truths plainly before you.—­To hear it pronounced, that Lord and Lady Darcey are the happiest couple on earth, is the hope that has pushed me on to this unpleasing office.

Bridgman is just set out for town.—­I am charg’d with a profusion of respects, thanks, &c. &c. &c. which, if you have the least oeconomy, will serve for him, and

Your very humble servant,

MOLESWORTH.

LETTER X.

Lord DARCEY to the Honourable GEORGE MOLESWORTH.

Barford Abbey.

Bridgman!—­Could Bridgman dare aspire to Miss Warley!—­He offer her his hand!—­he be connected with a woman whose disposition is diametrically opposite to his own!—­No,—­that would not have done, though I had never seen her.—­Let him seek for one who has a heart shut up by a thousand locks.

After his own conjectures,—­after what you have told him,—­should he but attempt to take her from me, by all that is sacred, he shall repent it dearly.

Molesworth! you are my friend,—­I take your admonitions well;—­but, surely, you should not press thus hardly on my soul, knowing its uneasy situation.—­My state is even more perplexing than when we parted:—­I did not then know she was going to France.—­Yes, she is absolutely going to France.—­Why leave her friends here?—­Why not wait the arrival of Lady Mary Sutton in England?

I have used every dissuasive argument but one.—­That shall be my last.—­If that fails I go—­I positively go with her.—­It is your opinion that she loves me.—­Would it were mine!—­Not the least partiality can I discover.—­Why then be precipitate?—­Every moment she is gaining ground in the affections of Sir James and Lady Powis.—­Time may work wonders in the mind of the former.—­Without his consent never can I give my hand;—­the commands of a dying father forbid me.—­Such a father!—­O George! you did not know him;—­so revered,—­so honour’d,—­so belov’d! not more in public than in private life.

My friend, behold your son!—­Darcey, behold your father!—­As you reverence and obey Sir James, as you consult him on all occasions, as you are guided by his advice, receive my blessing.—­These were his parting words, hugg’d into me in his last cold embrace.—­No, George, the promise I made can never be forfeited.—­I sealed it on his lifeless hand, before I was borne from him.

Now, are you convinc’d no mean views with-hold me?—­You despise not more than I do the knave and coxcomb; for no other, to satiate their own vanity, would sport away the quiet of a fellow-creature.—­Well may you call it cruel.—­Such cruelties fall little short of those practised by Nero and Caligula.

Did it depend on myself only, I would tell Miss Warley I love, every time I behold her enchanting face; every time I hear the voice of wisdom springing from the seat of innocence.