Did I tell you in my former letter, that Emily is with me half her time? She is a most engaging young creature. Her manners are so pure! Her heart is so sincere and open!--O, Lucy! you would dearly love her. I wish I may be asked to carry her down with me. Yet she adores her guardian: but her reverence for him will not allow of the innocent familiarity in thinking of him, that--I don't know what I would say. But to love with an ardor, that would be dangerous to one's peace, one must have more tenderness than reverence for the object: Don't you think so, Lucy? Miss Grandison made me one of her flying visits, as she calls them, soon after the countess and my lord went away. Mr. and Mrs. Reeves told her all that had been said before them by the earl and countess, as well before I went down to them, as after. They could not tell her what passed between that lady and me, when she took me aside. I had not had time to tell them. They referred to me for that: but besides that I was not in spirits, and cared not to say much, I was not willing to be thought by my refusal of so great an offer, to seem to fasten myself upon her brother. She pitied (who but must?) Lady Clementina. She pitied her brother also: and, seeing me dejected, she clasped her arms about me, and wet my cheek with a sisterly tear. Is it not very strange, Lucy, that his father should keep him so long abroad? These free-living men! of what absurdities are they not guilty! What misfortunes to others do they not occasion? One might, with the excellent Clementina, ask, What had Mr. Grandison to do in Italy! Or why, if he must go abroad, did he stay so long? Travelling! Young men travelling! I cannot, my dear, but think it a very nonsensical thing! What can they see, but the ruins of the gay, once busy world, of which they have read? To see a parcel of giddy boys under the direction of tutors or governors hunting after--What?--Nothing: or, at best, but ruins of ruins; for the imagination, aided by reflection, must be left, after all, to make out the greater glories, which the grave-digger Time has buried too deep for discovery. And when this grand tour is completed, the travelled youth returns: And, what is his boast? Why to be able to tell, perhaps his better taught friend, who has never been out of his native country, that he has seen in ruins, what the other has a juster idea of from reading; and of which, it is more than probable, he can give a much better account than the traveller. And are these, petulant Harriet, (methinks, Lucy, you demand,) all the benefits that you will suppose Sir Charles Grandison has reaped from his travelling? Why, no. But then, in turn, I ask, Is every traveller a Sir Charles Grandison?--And does not even he confess to Dr. Bartlett, that he wished he had never seen Italy? And may not the poor Clementina, and all her family, for her sake, wish he never had?