Dear Brother,--Yours of March 7th I received, and thank you for your care in despatching so speedily the business I desired you to do. It is the last of that kind I shall trouble you with. No more shall I write or receive letters to and from that person. But lest you should run into a mistake and think we have quarrelled, I assure you we are perfect friends; we think, wish and judge alike, but what avails it? We are both miserable. He has not differed with my mother, but she loves him not, because she esteems him the unlucky cause of a deep melancholy in a beloved child. For his own sake it is that I cease writing, because it is now his interest to forget me. Whether you will be engaged before thirty or not, I cannot determine; but if my advice be worth listening to, never engage your affections before your worldly affairs are in such a position that you may marry very soon. The contrary practice has proved very pernicious in our family; and were I to live my time over again, and had the same experience as I have now, were it for the best man in England, I would not wait one year. I know you are a young man, encompassed with difficulties, that has passed through many hardships already, and probably must pass through many more before you are easy in the world; but, believe me, if ever you come to suffer the torment of a hopeless love, all other afflictions will seem small in comparison of it. And that you may not think I speak at random, take some account of my past life, more than ever I spoke to anyone.