e.--Delays of this sort are not only
dangerous, but cruel.--Why delight to torture what we most admire?--From
a boy you despised such actions.--Often have I known Dick Jones, when at
Westminster, threshed by your hand for picking poor little birds
alive.--_His_ was an early point;--but for _Darcey_, accoutred with the
breast-plate of honour, even before he could read the word that
signifies its intrinsic value,--_for him_ to be falling off,--falling
off at a time _too_, when Virtue herself appears in person to support
him!

Can you say, you mean not to injure her?--Is a woman only to be injured,
but by an attempt on her virtue?--Is it _no_ crime, _no_ fault, to cheat
a young innocent lovely girl out of her affections, and give her
nothing in return but regret and disappointment?

Reflect, what a task is mine, thus to lay disagreeable truths plainly
before you.--To hear it pronounced, that Lord and Lady Darcey are the
happiest couple on earth, is the hope that has pushed me on to this
unpleasing office.

Bridgman is just set out for town.--I am charg'd with a profusion of
respects, thanks, &c. &c. &c. which, if you have the least oeconomy,
will serve for him, and

Your very humble servant,

MOLESWORTH.

LETTER X.

Lord DARCEY to the Honourable GEORGE MOLESWORTH.

_Barford Abbey_.

Bridgman!--Could Bridgman dare aspire to Miss Warley!--_He_ offer her
his hand!--_he_ be connected with a woman whose disposition is
diametrically opposite to his own!--_No_,--that would not have done,
though I had never seen her.--Let him seek for one who has a heart shut
up by a thousand locks.

After his _own_ conjectures,--after what _you_ have told him,--should he
_but_ attempt to take her from me, by all that is sacred, he shall
repent it dearly.

Molesworth! _you_ are my friend,--I take your admonitions well;--but,
surely, you should not press thus hardly on my soul, knowing its uneasy
situation.--My state is even more perplexing than when we parted:--I did
not then know she was going to France.--_Yes_, she is absolutely going
to _France_.--Why leave her friends here?--Why not wait the arrival of
Lady Mary Sutton in England?

I have used every dissuasive argument _but one_.--That shall be my
last.--If _that_ fails I go--I positively go with her.--It is your
opinion that she loves me.--Would it were mine!--_Not_ the least
partiality can I discover.--Why then be precipitate?--Every moment she
is gaining ground in