Don't you think, my dear Rivers, that marriage, on prudent principles, is a horrid sort of an affair? It is really cruel of papas and mammas to shut up two poor innocent creatures in a house together, to plague and torment one another, who might have been very happy separate. Where people take their own time, and chuse for themselves, it is another affair, and I begin to think it possible affection may last through life. I sometimes fancy to myself Fitzgerald and I loving on, from the impassioned hour when I first honored him with my hand, to that tranquil one, when we shall take our afternoon's nap _vis a vis_ in two arm chairs, by the fire-side, he a grave country justice, and I his worship's good sort of a wife, the Lady Bountiful of the parish. I have a notion there is nothing so very shocking in being an oldish gentlewoman; what one loses in charms, is made up in the happy liberty of doing and saying whatever one pleases. Adieu! LETTER 217. To Captain Fitzgerald. Bellfield, Nov. 16. My relation, Colonel Willmott, is just arrived from the East Indies, rich, and full of the project of marrying his daughter to me. My mother has this morning received a letter from him, pressing the affair with an earnestness which rather makes me feel for his disappointment, and wish to break it to him as gently as possible. He talks of being at Bellfield on Wednesday evening, which is Temple's masquerade; I shall stay behind at Bellfield, to receive him, have a domino ready, and take him to Temple-house. He seems to know nothing of my marriage or my sister's, and I wish him not to know of the former till he has seen Emily. The best apology I can make for declining his offer, is to shew him the lovely cause. I will contrive they shall converse together at the masquerade, and that he shall sit next her at supper, without their knowing any thing of each other. If he sees her, if he talks with her, without that prejudice which the knowledge of her being the cause of his disappointment might give, he cannot fail of having for her that admiration which I never yet met with a mind savage enough to refuse her. His daughter has been educated abroad, which is a circumstance I am pleased with, as it gives me the power of refusing her without wounding either her vanity, or her father's, which, had we been acquainted, might have been piqued at my giving the preference to another. She is not in England, but is hourly expected: the moment she arrives, Lucy and I will fetch her to Temple-house: I shall be anxious to see her married to a man who deserves her. Colonel Willmott tells me, she is very amiable; at least as he is told, for he has never seen her. I could wish it were possible to conceal this offer for ever from Emily; my delicacy is hurt at the idea of her knowing it, at least from me or my family.