 a design of dining with us, but was so taken with me
that he stayed three days. I had too much experience in all affairs of this kind
not to see presently the influence I had on him; but I was at that time so
intirely free from all ambition, that even the prospect of being a countess had
no effect on me; and I then thought nothing in the world could have bribed me to
have changed my way of life. This young lord, who was just in his bloom, found
his passion so strong, he could not endure a long absence, but returned again in
a week, and endeavoured, by all the means he could think of, to engage me to
return his affection. He addressed me with that tenderness and respect which
women on earth think can flow from nothing but real love; and very often told me
that, unless he could be so happy as by his assiduity and care to make himself
agreeable to me, although he knew my father would eagerly embrace any proposal
from him, yet he would suffer that last of miseries of never seeing me more
rather than owe his own happiness to anything that might be the least
contradiction to my inclinations. This manner of proceeding had something in it
so noble and generous, that by degrees it raised a sensation in me which I know
not how to describe, nor by what name to call it: it was nothing like my former
passion: for there was no turbulence, no uneasy waking nights attending it, but
all I could with honour grant to oblige him appeared to me to be justly due to
his truth and love, and more the effect of gratitude than of any desire of my
own. The character I had heard of him from my father at my first returning to
England, in discoursing of the young nobility, convinced me that if I was his
wife I should have the perpetual satisfaction of knowing every action of his
must be approved by all the sensible part of mankind; so that very soon I began
to have no scruple left but that of leaving my little scene of quietness, and
venturing again into the world. But this, by his continual application and
submissive behaviour, by degrees entirely vanished, and I agreed he should take
his own time to break it to my father, whose consent he was not long in
obtaining; for such a match was by no means to be refused. There remained
nothing now to be done but to prevail with the earl of Northumberland to comply
with what his son so ardently desired; for which purpose he set out immediately
for London, and begged
