e
him to such an innocent freedom: and he was both amazed and grieved to be
thus scornfully repulsed.

No reply could be made be me on such a subject.

I abruptly broke from him. I recollect, as I passed by one of the pier-
glasses, that I saw in it his clenched hand offered in wrath to his
forehead: the words, Indifference, by his soul, next to hatred, I heard
him speak; and something of ice he mentioned: I heard not what.

Whether he intends to write to my Lord, or Miss Montague, I cannot tell.
But, as all delicacy ought to be over with me now, perhaps I am to blame
to expect it from a man who may not know what it is. If he does not, and
yet thinks himself very polite, and intends not to be otherwise, I am
rather to be pitied, than he to be censured.

And after all, since I must take him as I find him, I must: that is to
say, as a man so vain and so accustomed to be admired, that, not being
conscious of internal defect, he has taken no pains to polish more than
his outside: and as his proposals are higher than my expectations; and
as, in his own opinion, he has a great deal to bear from me, I will (no
new offence preventing) sit down to answer them; and, if possible, in
terms as unobjectionable to him, as his are to me.

But after all, see you not, my dear, more and more, the mismatch that
there is in our minds?

However, I am willing to compound for my fault, by giving up, (if that
may be all my punishment) the expectation of what is deemed happiness in
this life, with such a husband as I fear he will make. In short, I will
content myself to be a suffering person through the state to the end of
my life.--A long one it cannot be!

This may qualify him (as it may prove) from stings of conscience from
misbehaviour to a first wife, to be a more tolerable one to a second,
though not perhaps a better deserving one: while my story, to all who
shall know it, will afford these instructions: That the eye is a traitor,
and ought ever to be mistrusted: that form is deceitful: in other words;
that a fine person is seldom paired by a fine mind: and that sound
principle and a good heart, are the only bases on which the hopes of a
happy future, either with respect to this world, or the other, can be
built.

And so much at present for Mr. Lovelace's proposals: Of which I desire
your opinion.*

* We cannot forbear observing in this place, that the Lady has been
particularly censured, even by some of her own sex, as ove