no value for me, and, sure, I never disobliged him to my
knowledge, and should, with all the willingness imaginable, serve him if
it lay in my power.

Good God! what an unhappy person am I. All the world is so almost. Just
now they are telling me of a gentleman near us that is the most wretched
creature made (by the loss of a wife that he passionately loved) that
can be. If your father would but in some measure satisfy my friends that
I might but do it in any justifiable manner, you should dispose me as
you pleased, carry me whither you would, all places of the world would
be alike to me where you were, and I should not despair of carrying
myself so towards him as might deserve a better opinion from him.

I am yours.

_Letter 70._

My doubts and fears were not at all increased by that which gives you so
many, nor did I apprehend that your father might not have been prevailed
with to have allowed my brother's being seen in the treaty; for as to
the thing itself, whether he appears in't or not, 'twill be the same. He
cannot but conclude my brother Peyton would not do anything in it
without the others' consent.

I do not pretend to any share in your father's kindness, as having
nothing in me to merit it; but as much a stranger as I am to him, I
should have taken it very ill if I had desired it of him, and he had
refused it me. I do not believe my brother has said anything to his
prejudice, unless it were in his persuasions to me, and there it did not
injure him at all. If he takes it ill that my brother appears so very
averse to the match, I may do so too, that he was the same; and nothing
less than my kindness for you could have made me take so patiently as I
did his saying to some that knew me at York that he was forced to bring
you thither and afterwards to send you over lest you should have married
me. This was not much to my advantage, nor hardly civil, I think, to any
woman; yet I never so much as took the least notice on't, nor had not
now, but for this occasion; yet, sure, it concerns me to be at least as
nice as he in point of honour. I think 'tis best for me to end here lest
my anger should make me lose that respect I would always have for your
father, and 'twere not amiss, I think, that I devoted it all towards you
for being so idle as to run out of your bed to catch such a cold.

If you come hither you must expect to be chidden so much that you will
wish that you had stayed till we came up, when perh