Chapter 9

The Honourable GEORGE MOLESWORTH to LORD DARCEY.

_Bath_.

What a sacrifice do you offer up to that old dog Plutus!--I have lost _all_ patience,--_all_ patience, I say.--_Such_ a woman!--_such_ an angelic woman!--But what has,--what will avail my arguments?--Her peace is gone,--if you persevere in a behaviour so _particular_,--absolutely gone.

Bridgman this morning told me, that unless I assured him you had _pretensions_ to Miss Warley, he was determined to offer her his hand;--_that_ nothing prevented him from doing it whilst at the Abbey, but your mysterious conduct, which he was at a loss how to construe. --Not to offend _you_, the _Lady_ or _family_ she is with, he apply'd, he said, to _me_, as a friend of each party, to set him right.

Surely, Bridgman, returned I, you wish to keep yourself in the dark; or how the duce have you been six days with people whose countenances speak so much sensibility, and not make the discovery you seek after?

Though her behaviour to us; continued I, was politeness itself, was there nothing more than _politeness_ in her address to Lord Darcey?--Her smiles _too_, in which Diana and the Graces revel, saw you not _them_, how they played from one to another, like sun-beams on the water, until they fixed on him?--Is the nation in debt?--So much is Darcey in love;--and you may as well pay off one, as rival the other with success.

Observe, my friend, in what manner I have answered for you.--Keep her, therefore, no longer in suspence.--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.