My Gabrielle, I have read R----‘s note enclosed in your charming sprightly letter. What a contrast! So cold! so formal! A thousand times rather would I not have heard from him, than have received a letter so little in unison with my feelings. He talks to me of business. Business! What business ought to detain a man a moment from the woman he loves? The interests of his ambition are nothing to me. What are all these to love? Is he so mean as to hesitate between them? then I despise him! and Olivia can never love the being she despises! Does R---- flatter himself that his power over my heart is omnipotent? Does he imagine that Olivia is to be slighted with impunity? Does R---- think that a woman, who has even nominally the honour to reign over his heart, cannot meditate new conquests? Oh, credulous vanity of man! He fancies, perhaps, that he is secure of the maturer age of one, who fondly devoted to him her inexperienced youth. “Security is the curse of fools.” Does he in his wisdom deem a woman’s age a sufficient pledge for her constancy? He might every day see examples enough to convince him of his error. In fact, the age of women has nothing to do with the number of their years. Possibly, however, the gallant gentleman may be of opinion with Leonora’s Swiss, that Lady Olivia is _un peu passée_. Adieu, my dear friend; you, who always understand and sympathize in my feelings, you will express them for me in the best manner possible. I shall not write to R----. You will see him; and Olivia commits to you what to a woman of delicacy is more dear than her love--her just resentment. OLIVIA. * * * * * LETTER XXXVII. OLIVIA TO MADAME DE P----. L---- Castle.