“My dear father, I have made all possible inquiries about Buckhurst Falconer. He stayed at Cheltenham till about a month ago with the Hautons, and I hear attended Miss Hauton every where: but I do not think there is any reason to believe the report of his paying his addresses to her. The public attention he showed her was, in my opinion, designed only to pique Caroline, whom, I’m persuaded, he thinks (between the fits of half-a-dozen other fancies) the first of women--as he always calls her. Rosamond need not waste much pity on him. He is an out-of-sight-out-of-mind man. The pleasure of the present moment is all in all with him.--He has many good points in his disposition; but Caroline had penetration enough to see that his character would never suit hers; and I rejoice that she gave him a decided refusal. “Since he came to town, he has, by his convivial powers, his good stories, good songs, and knack of mimicry, made himself so _famous_, that he has more invitations to dinner than he can accept. He has wit and talents fit for more than being the buffoon or mocking-bird of a good dinner and a pleasant party; but he seems so well contented with this _réputation de salon_, that I am afraid his ambition will not rise to any thing higher. After leading this idle life, and enjoying this cheap-earned praise, he will never submit to the seclusion and application necessary for the attainment of the great prizes of professional excellence. I doubt whether he will even persevere so far as to be called to the bar; though the other day when I met him in Bond-street, he assured me, and bid me assure you, that he is getting on _famously_, and eating his terms with a prodigious appetite. He seemed heartily glad to see me, and expressed warm gratitude for your having saved his conscience, and having prevented his father from forcing him, as he said, to be a disgrace to the church. “Rosamond asks what sort of girls the Miss Falconers are, and whether the Falconers have been civil to me since I settled in town?--Yes; pretty well. The girls are mere _show_ girls--like a myriad of others--sing, play, dance, dress, flirt, and _all that_. Georgiana is _beautiful sometimes_; Arabella, _ugly always_. I don’t like either of them, and they don’t like me, for I am not an eldest son. The mother was prodigiously pleased with me at first, because she mistook me for Godfrey, or rather she mistook me for the heir of our branch of the Percys. I hear that Mrs. Falconer has infinite address, both as a political and hymeneal _intrigante_: but I have not time to study her. Altogether, the family, though they live in constant gaiety, do not give me the idea of being happy among one another. I have no particular reason for saying this. I judge only from the tact on this subject which I have acquired from my own happy experience.