VOLUME III
LETTER I
FROM LORD FILMAR
TO
SIR WALTER BOYER
DEAR WALTER,
Two days have I allowed you to wear out your astonishment at my ingenuity, address, and perseverance, and to exercise your imagination in following me and my bride from stage to stage of this admirably contrived journey.—Does the novelty of the adventure wear off?—Happy knight!—to have for thy chosen friend and bosom confidant, one who can ever open the field of variety before thee; and who, to cheer thy languid fancy, removes the pleasure on which thou hadst feasted to satiety, and places the pride-correcting view of disappointment in its stead.
Yes, indeed: old Andrew will find Miss Valmont where he left her; and I shall not be hanged for heiress-stealing. Don Valmont need not swear; and the trio will not sit in judgment on my deeds.—I have had my day of rage; and my day of sullens; and now, in the calmness of grief, I sit down to tell thee that, instead of being circled in my fair one's arms lord of her wealth, I am yet a poor broken-down gamester, and the guest of Sir Gilbert Monckton.
Heigh ho!—Had my plan been over turned when but half advanced, or had this family or that, even my father, or her uncle, detected me and torn her from my gripe I had forgiven it. But to be defeated in the moment of success by my own agents, my tools, tools for whose conscience and courage I had bargained—such tools I say, to be frightened by a black-gowned, bearded, nobody knows what—oh 'tis too much!
I swear when I wrote you that letter I would not have abated 500l. of my utmost expectations for the chances against me. How could I foresee I should have to deal with a knavish sort of a nameless something?—Who upon earth would imagine, in a seclusion so perfect, this girl could baffle a vigilant guardian, dupe a whole family, and with an art the most refined intrigue under circumstances and forms which sets discovery at defiance?—Nature-taught too!