e favor of
Miss Fermor to accompany you to Montreal, which we will endeavour to
make as agreable to her as we can.

I have been ill of a slight fever, but am now perfectly recovered.
Sir George and Mr. Melmoth are well, and very impatient to see you
here.

Adieu! my dear.
Your affectionate
E. Melmoth.

LETTER 44.

To Mrs. Melmoth, at Montreal.

Silleri, Nov. 20.

I have a thousand reasons, my dearest Madam, for intreating you to
excuse my staying some time longer at Quebec. I have the sincerest
esteem for Sir George, and am not insensible of the force of our
engagements; but do not think his being there a reason for my coming:
the kind of suspended state, to say no more, in which those engagements
now are, call for a delicacy in my behaviour to him, which is so
difficult to observe without the appearance of affectation, that his
absence relieves me from a very painful kind of restraint: for the same
reason, 'tis impossible for me to come up at the time he does, if I do
come, even though Miss Fermor should accompany me.

A moment's reflexion will convince you of the propriety of my
staying here till his mother does me the honor again to approve his
choice; or till our engagement is publicly known to be at an end. Mrs.
Clayton is a prudent mother, and a woman of the world, and may consider
that Sir George's situation is changed since she consented to his
marriage.

I am not capricious; but I will own to you, that my esteem for Sir
George is much lessened by his behaviour since his last return from
New-York: he mistakes me extremely, if he supposes he has the least
additional merit in my eyes from his late acquisition of fortune: on
the contrary, I now see faults in him which were concealed by the
mediocrity of his situation before, and which do not promise happiness
to a heart like mine, a heart which has little taste for the false
glitter of life, and the most lively one possible for the calm real
delights of friendship, and domestic felicity.

Accept my sincerest congratulations on your return of health; and
believe me,

My dearest Madam,
Your obliged and affectionate
Emily Montague.

LETTER 45.

To Miss Rivers, Clarges Street.

Silleri, Nov. 23.

I have been seeing the last ship go out of the port, Lucy; you have
no notion what a melancholy sight it is: we are now left to ourselves,
and shut up from all the world for the winter: somehow we seem so