but your fortune and my indiscretion.
And whereas I did expect that (at least in compliment to me) he should
have said we had been a couple of fools well met, he says by his troth
he does not blame you, but bids me not deceive myself to think you have
any great passion for me.

If you have done with the first part of _Cyrus_, I should be glad Mr.
Hollingsworth had it, because I mentioned some such thing in my last to
my Lady; but there is no haste of restoring the other unless she should
send to me for it, which I believe she will not. I have a third tome
here against you have done with that second; and to encourage you, let
me assure you that the more you read of them you will like them still
better. Oh, me! whilst I think on't, let me ask you one question
seriously, and pray resolve me truly;--do I look so stately as people
apprehend? I vow to you I made nothing on't when Sir Emperor said so,
because I had no great opinion of his judgment, but Mr. Freeman makes me
mistrust myself extremely, not that I am sorry I did appear so to him
(since it kept me from the displeasure of refusing an offer which I do
not perhaps deserve), but that it is a scurvy quality in itself, and I
am afraid I have it in great measure if I showed any of it to him, for
whom I have so much respect and esteem. If it be so you must needs know
it; for though my kindness will not let me look so upon you, you can see
what I do to other people. And, besides, there was a time when we
ourselves were indifferent to one another;--did I do so then, or have I
learned it since? For God's sake tell me, that I may try to mend it. I
could wish, too, that you would lay your commands on me to forbear
fruit: here is enough to kill 1000 such as I am, and so extremely good,
that nothing but your power can secure me; therefore forbid it me, that
I may live to be

Your.

_Letter 25._--Dorothy's dissertations on love and marriage are always
amusing in their demureness. Who Cousin Peters was we cannot now say,
but she was evidently a relation and a gossip. The episode concerning
Mistress Harrison and the Queen is explained by the following quotation
from the autobiography of the Countess of Warwick.

She is writing of Mr. Charles Rich, and says: "He was then in love with
a Maid of Honour to the Queen, one Mrs. Hareson, that had been
chamber-fellow to my sister-in-law whilst she lived at Court, and that
brought on the acquaintance between him and my sister. He conti