n as he comes
back.

Eight o'clock.

I have been making some flying visits to the French ladies; tho' I
have not seen many beauties, yet in general the women are handsome;
their manner is easy and obliging, they make the most of their charms
by their vivacity, and I certainly cannot be displeas'd with their
extreme partiality for the English officers; their own men, who indeed
are not very attractive, have not the least chance for any share in
their good graces.

Thursday morning.

I am just setting out with a friend for Major Melmoth's, to pay my
compliments to the two ladies: I have no relish for this visit; I hate
misses that are going to be married; they are always so full of the
dear man, that they have not common civility to other people. I am told
however both the ladies are agreeable.

14th. Eight in the evening.

Agreeable, Lucy! she is an angel: 'tis happy for me she is engag'd;
nothing else could secure my heart, of which you know I am very
tenacious: only think of finding beauty, delicacy, sensibility, all
that can charm in woman, hid in a wood in Canada!

You say I am given to be enthusiastic in my approbations, but she is
really charming. I am resolv'd not only to have a friendship for her
myself, but that _you_ shall, and have told her so; she comes to
England as soon as she is married; you are form'd to love each other.

But I must tell you; Major Melmoth kept us a week at his house in
the country, in one continued round of rural amusements; by which I do
not mean hunting and shooting, but such pleasures as the ladies could
share; little rustic balls and parties round the neighbouring country,
in which parties we were joined by all the fine women at Montreal. Mrs.
Melmoth is a very pleasing, genteel brunette, but Emily Montague--you
will say I am in love with her if I describe her, and yet I declare to
you I am not: knowing she loves another, to whom she is soon to be
united, I see her charms with the same kind of pleasure I do yours; a
pleasure, which, tho' extremely lively, is by our situation without the
least mixture of desire.

I have said, she is charming; there are men here who do not think
so, but to me she is loveliness itself. My ideas of beauty are perhaps
a little out of the common road: I hate a woman of whom every man
coldly says, _she is handsome_; I adore beauty, but it is not meer
features or complexion to which I give that name; 'tis life,
'tis spirit, 'tis animation, 'tis-