.
YOUR kind packet was brought me this morning. A thousand, thousand thanks to my beloved Sophia, for the warm friendship and affection which breathes in every line. Such a friend, at all times an invaluable treasure, is in our present situation if possible still more unspeakably precious: for when we now look around us, there remains not one other person, Madame de Clarence excepted,

to whom that tender appellation is due; and even she is not a Sophia.
One part of your letter actually dyed my cheeks with blushes, although I read it in private. How can you rally me so unmercifully because I described our fellow traveller to be what he really is—a very agreeable man. I did not tell you he was an Adonis, nor did I express myself, if I recollect, in terms of greater warmth than the politeness of his attentions merited from me. That he is handsome, and uncommonly engaging in his manner, is no more than you yourself must have acknowledged had you also been of the party. I confess however I have been several times a little apprehensive of your animadversions upon different parts of my journal, tho' I did not imagine you would have taken such strange notions so early into your head.
If you have become already suspicious,

how much elated will you prove, and how vain of your sagacity, when you receive the latter part of my journal, where you find I have again met with my hero, as you call him. I am conscious I have laid myself still more open to ridicule in some of my last packets than even when you took the hint with so much avidity from nothing.
I freely acknowledge, however, that the natural eagerness of my temper may have led me to express myself with an energy which was perhaps absurd enough; but I am accustomed, to my Sophia, to think on paper; I give every idea full latitude, and never once reflect how ridiculous I may often appear.
You command me, you say, on my allegiance, to confess faithfully if I do not find myself inclined to be a little more solicitous about this Oroondates than I ever was about the Chevalier de Mertane, or any other man? Indeed, my

dear, this is by no means putting the matter to a fair trial; for to compare Mr. Roatsley with the Chevalier argues nothing in the world in favour of your opinion, the latter being determinedly disagreeable to me; and there is a material difference I hope between acknowledging that a man is agreeable and being in love with him. That I think Mr. Roatsley the most agreeable man
