Adieu! my dear! we set out early in the morning for Montreal.
Your affectionate
Ed. Rivers.
LETTER XVIII.18.
To Miss Rivers, Clarges Street.
Montreal, Sept. 19, eleven o’clock.
No, my dear, it is impossible she can love him; his dull soul is ill suited to hers; heavy, unmeaning, formal; a slave to rules, to ceremony, to etiquette, he has not an idea above those of a gentleman usher. He has been three hours in town without seeing her; dressing, and waiting to pay his compliments first to the general, who is riding, and every minute expected back. I am all impatience, though only her friend, but think it would be indecent in me to go without him, and look like a design of reproaching his coldness. How differently are we formed! I should have stole a moment to see the woman I loved from the first prince in the universe.
The general is returned. Adieu! till our visit is over; we go from thence to Major Melmoth’s, whose family I should have told you are in town, and not half a street from us. What a soul of fire has this lover! ’Tis to profane the word to use it in speaking of him.
One o’clock.
I am mistaken, Lucy; astonishing as it is, she loves him; this dull clod of uninformed earth has touched the lively soul of my Emily. Love is indeed the child of caprice; I will not say of sympathy, for what sympathy can there be between two hearts so different? I am hurt, she is lowered in my esteem; I expected to find in the man she loved, a mind sensible and tender as her own.
I repeat it, my dear Lucy, she loves him; I observed her when we entered the room; she blushed, she turned pale, she trembled, her voice faltered; every look spoke the strong emotion of her soul.