must confess, I talk of lace and blond like another
christian woman.

I have been thinking, Lucy, as indeed my ideas are generally a
little pindaric, how entertaining and improving would be the history of
the human heart, if people spoke all the truth, and painted themselves
as they really are: that is to say, if all the world were as sincere
and honest as I am; for, upon my word, I have such a contempt for
hypocrisy, that, upon the whole, I have always appeared to have fewer
good qualities than I really have.

I am afraid we should find in the best characters, if we withdrew
the veil, a mixture of errors and inconsistencies, which would greatly
lessen our veneration.

Papa has been reading me a wise lecture, this morning, on playing
the fool: I reminded him, that I was now arrived at years of
_indiscretion_; that every body must have their day; and that those
who did not play the fool young, ran a hazard of doing it when it would
not half so well become them.

_A propos_ to playing the fool, I am strongly inclined to
believe I shall marry.

Fitzgerald is so astonishingly pressing--Besides, some how or
other, I don't feel happy without him: the creature has something of a
magnetic virtue; I find myself generally, without knowing it, on the
same side the room with him, and often in the next chair; and lay a
thousand little schemes to be of the same party at cards.

I write pretty sentiments in my pocket-book, and carve his name on
trees when nobody sees me: did you think it possible I could be such an
ideot?

I am as absurd as even the gentle love-sick Emily.

I am thinking, my dear, how happy it is, since most human beings
differ so extremely one from another, that heaven has given us the same
variety in our tastes.

Your brother is a divine fellow, and yet there is a sauciness about
Fitzgerald which pleases me better; as he has told me a thousand
times, he thinks me infinitely more agreable than Emily.

Adieu! I am going to Quebec.

Yours,
A. Fermor.

LETTER 140.

To Mrs. Temple, Pall Mall.

May 20, Evening.

_Io triumphe!_ A ship from England! You can have no idea of
the universal transport at the sight; the whole town was on the beach,
eagerly gazing at the charming stranger, who danced gaily on the waves,
as if conscious of the pleasure she inspired.

If our joy is so great, who preserve a correspondence with Europe,
through our other colonies, during the winter, what mu