Silleri, May 13.
Madame Des Roches has just left us; she returns to-day to the Kamaraskas: she came to take leave of us, and shewed a concern at parting from Emily, which really affected me. She is a most amiable woman; Emily and she were in tears at parting; yet I think my sweet friend is not sorry for her return: she loves her, but yet cannot absolutely forget she has been her rival, and is as well satisfied that she leaves Quebec before your brother’s arrival.
The weather is lovely; the earth is in all its verdure, the trees in foliage, and no snow but on the sides of the mountains; we are looking eagerly out for ships from dear England: I expect by them volumes of letters from my Lucy. We expect your brother in a week: in short, we are all hope and expectation; our hearts beat at every rap of the door, supposing it brings intelligence of a ship, or of the dear man.
Fitzgerald takes such amazing pains to please me, that I begin to think it is pity so much attention should be thrown away; and am half inclined, from meer compassion, to follow the example you have so heroically set me.
Absolutely, Lucy, it requires amazing resolution to marry.
Adieu! yours,
A. Fermor.
LETTER CXXXV.137.
To Colonel Rivers, at Montreal.
Silleri, May 14.
I am returned, my Rivers, to my sweet friend, and have again the dear delight of talking of you without restraint; she bears with, she indulges me in, all my weakness; if that name ought to be given to a tenderness of which the object is the most exalted and worthy of his sex.