the indication of a
pleasing companion; a sensibility of countenance, which speaks a friend
and a lover; to which I ought to add, an affectionate, constant
attention to women, and a polite indifference to men, which above all
things flatters the vanity of the sex.

Of all men breathing, I should have been most afraid of you as a
rival; Mrs. Fitzgerald has told me, you have said the same thing of me.

Happily, however, our tastes were different; the two amiable
objects of our tenderness were perhaps equally lovely; but it is not
the meer form, it is the character that strikes: the fire, the spirit,
the vivacity, the awakened manner, of Miss Fermor won you; whilst my
heart was captivated by that bewitching languor, that seducing
softness, that melting sensibility, in the air of my sweet Emily, which
is, at least to me, more touching than all the sprightliness in the
world.

There is in true sensibility of soul, such a resistless charm, that
we are even affected by that of which we are not ourselves the object:
we feel a degree of emotion at being witness to the affection which
another inspires.

'Tis late, and my horses are at the door.

Adieu! Your faithful
Ed. Rivers.

LETTER 180.

To Miss Montague, Rose-hill, Berkshire.

Temple-house, Sept. 16.

I have but a moment, my dearest Emily, to tell you heaven favors
your tenderness: it removes every anxiety from two of the worthiest and
most gentle of human hearts.

You and my brother have both lamented to me the painful necessity
you were under, of reducing my mother to a less income than that to
which she had been accustomed.

An unexpected event has restored to her more than what her
tenderness for my brother had deprived her of.

A relation abroad, who owed every thing to her father's friendship,
has sent her, as an acknowledgement of that friendship, a deed of gift,
settling on her four hundred pounds a year for life.

My brother is at Stamford, and is yet unacquainted with this
agreable event.

You will hear from him next post.

Adieu! my dear Emily!
Your affectionate
L. Temple.

END OF VOL. III.

THE HISTORY OF EMILY MONTAGUE.

Vol. IV

LETTER 181.

To Colonel Rivers, at Bellfield, Rutland.

Rose-hill, Sept. 17.

Can you in earnest ask such a question? can you suppose I ever felt
the least degree of love for Sir George? No, my Rivers, never did your
Emily feel tenderness t