We intended to have left this to-morrow, but Mrs. D. won't travel on a Friday. "It's an unlucky day," she says, and maybe she's right. If I don't mistake greatly, it was on a Friday I was married; but of course this is a reminiscence I keep to myself. This reminds me of the question in your postscript, and to which I reply: "Not a bit of it; nothing of the kind. So far as I see, Tiverton feels a strong attachment to James, but never even notices the girls. I ought to add that this is not Mrs. D.'s opinion; and she is always flouncing into my dressing-room, with a new discovery of a look that he gave Mary Anne, or a whisper that he dropped into Cary's ear. Mothers would be a grand element in a detective police, if they did n't now and then see more than was in sight; but that's their failing, Tom. The same generous zeal which they employ in magnifying their husbands' faults helps them to many another exaggeration. Now Mrs. D. is what she calls fully persuaded--in other words, she has some shadowy suspicions--that Lord George has formed a strong attachment to one or other of her daughters, the only doubtful point being which of them is to be my Lady." Shall I confess to you that I rather cherish the notion than seek to disabuse her of it, and for this simple reason: whenever she is in full cry after grandeur, whether in the shape of an acquaintance, an invitation, or a match for the girls, she usually gives me a little peace and quietness. The peerage, "God bless our old nobility," acts like an anodyne on her. I give you, therefore, both sides of the question, repeating once more my own conviction that Lord G. has no serious intentions, to use the phrase maternal, whatever. And now to your second query: If not, is it prudent to encourage his intimacy? Why, Tom Purcell, just bethink you for a moment, and see to what a strange condition would your theory, if acted on, resolve all the inhabitants of the globe. Into one or other category they must go infallibly. "Either they want to marry one of the Dodds, or they don't." Now, though the fact is palpable enough, it is for all purposes of action a most embarrassing one; and if I proceed to make use of it, I shall either be doomed to very tiresome acquaintances, or a life of utter solitude and desertion.