 forty three, was not to be avoided; for where the mind and form both equally conspire to charm and seduce, no age is exempted from feeling their united force. Against such there is no defence, and one only cure; for where hope is completely extinguished passion seldom continues to torment. In this case it often changes both its nature and its name, and meliorating into a tender friendship, constitutes a less selfish gratification instead of proving the misery of our lives.
This, Miss Seymour, has been exactly my case. My efforts however to escape from one danger have led me into another no less insinuating. Tho' I intreat you to believe me, when I solemnly declare that I never was for one moment either so mad or so interested as to wish for my own enjoyment at the price of your amiable sister's prosperity; nor

while her future prospects seemed favorable, and her situation in life promised to prove almost equal to her merits, should any consideration on earth have induced me to make known my present presumption. I should have had then no remaining wish but for her happiness and success in every pursuit. The disappointment of my wishes as to the latter, has however given birth to hopes that the first is not still unattainable, and induced me to flatter myself that should she deign to allow of my most zealous endeavours to contribute to it, it may not prove beyond my power in some measure to console her for what she has lost.
Do not however imagine, that I shall so far descend from my age and character as to be offended by a refusal. An admirer at my time of life must not pretend to assume the lover of twenty. I am aware of the great inequality of our years, and of many other objections your

sister may feel, and the force of which she may not be able to surmount. If however she thinks, after consulting with you, that there are any advantages to compensate these obstacles, if the warmest attachment and the most unbounded indulgence, if my legal protection, and the command of a fortune much too narrow, alas! for her pretensions and almost beneath her acceptance, yet with which I flatter myself a mind like her's could be contented;—if these circumstances weigh in any degree against the opposite scale, I must so far adopt the language of a lover as to declare that she will literally render me the happiest of men. I shall receive her hand as a fresh blessing from heaven, and regard it as a condescension for which I shall ever consider myself her debtor.
Some hints in this speech of
