I have now gone over this question in every direction I could think of, because I hope that it may nevermore recur between us. It is a theme which I advert to with sorrow, for really I am unable to acquit of presumption one whose general character is conspicuous for a modest and retiring humility. You will acquaint him with as much of the sentiments I here express as you deem fitting. I leave everything to your excellent delicacy and discretion. I only beg that I may not be again asked for explanations on a matter so excessively disagreeable to discuss, and that I may be spared alluding to those peculiar circumstances which separate us forever. If the time should come when he will take a more reasonable and just view of our respective conditions, nothing will be more agreeable to me than to renew those relations of friendship which we so long cultivated as neighbors; and if, in any future state I may occupy, I can be of the least service to him, I beg you to believe that it will be both a pride and a pleasure to me to know it. It is needless, after this, to answer the question of your postscript. Of course he must not write to me. Nothing could induce me to read his letter. That he should ever have thought of such a thing is a proof--and no slight one--of his utter ignorance of all the conventional rules which regulate social intercourse. But a truce to a theme so painful. I answer your brief question of the turn-down of your letter as curtly as it is put. No; I am not in love with Lord George, nor is he with me. We regard each other as brother and sister; we talk in the most unreserved confidence; we say things which, in the narrower prejudices of England, would be infallibly condemned. In fact, Kitty, the sway of a conscientious sense of right, the inward feeling of purity, admit of many liberties here, which are denied to us at home. Here I tell you, in one word, what it is that constitutes the superiority in tone of the Continent over our own country,--I should say it was this very same freedom of thought and action.