Your faithful,
A. Fermor.
Now I think of it, why did you not write to your brother? Did you chuse me to expose my ignorance? If so, I flatter myself you are a little taken in, for I think John and I figure in the rural way.
LETTER XXIII.23.
To Miss Rivers, Clarges Street.
Silleri, Sept. 29, 10 o’clock.
O to be sure! we are vastly to be pitied: no beaux at all with the general; only about six to one; a very pretty proportion, and what I hope always to see. We, the ladies I mean, drink chocolate with the general to-morrow, and he gives us a ball on Thursday; you would not know Quebec again; nothing but smiling faces now; all so gay as never was, the sweetest country in the world; never expect to see me in England again; one is really somebody here: I have been asked to dance by only twenty-seven.
On the subject of dancing, I am, as it were, a little embarrased:embarrassed: you will please to observe that, in the time of scarcity, when all the men were at Montreal, I suffered a foolish little captain to sigh and say civil things to me, pour passer le tems, and the creature takes the airs of a lover, to which he has not the least pretensions, and chuses to be angry that I won’t dance with him on Thursday, and I positively won’t.
It is really pretty enough that every absurd animal, who takes upon him to make love to one, is to fancy himself entitled to a return: I have no patience with the men’s ridiculousness: have you, Lucy?
But I see a ship coming down under full sail; it may be Emily and her friends: the colours are all out, they slacken sail; they drop anchor opposite the house; ’tis certainly them; I must fly to the beach: music as I am a person, and an awning on the deck: the boat puts off with your brother in it. Adieu for a moment: I must go and invite them on shore.
2 o’clock.