 he had no inclination to perform the stipulated engagement.
One thing I had almost forgot, which is, that they are second cousins; and, that Sommerville succeeded to the estate he now enjoys, in consequence of its being entailed on the male heir, otherwise it would have devolved to Lady Mary; so that strictly speaking, he is not to forfeit any part of it, but which is nearly the same thing, is to pay to her an equivalent sum of money.
These, in as few words as I could give you them, are the particulars of that affair; he has never been more attentive to her than even cold good breeding requires; and happy it is her Ladyship never beheld him with any degree of partiality; she wished him to reject her, yet would not inform him of her sentiments, merely that she might have it in her power to punish him for his irregularities, well

knowing he is highly povoked at being thus fettered.
Her own fortune is very considerable, nor does she mean to augment it by the sum she is, on his rejecting her hand, to receive from him: had he proved himself more worthy, she assures me, she intended resigning her claim; but since he is such a libertine, she proposes accepting the money, and settling it on a young gentleman, his Lordship's nearest relation, who is uncommonly amiable and deserving, but whose family estate, by the extravagance of his predecessor, is reduced almost to nothing.
This, Sophia, is her generous intention, nor is it possible to find an objection to it: the artful, the designing Sommerville will, after all, in his estate, possess but too much for the base purposes in which he employs it.
Lady Mary has a great share of vivacity, and often diverts me when talking of Lord Sommerville's embarrassed situation, and the astonishment he must have been in on hearing of our first meeting, and that I am now actually resident with her—it was certainly a very droll accident,

Sophia, as could possibly happen, yet nothing of the marvellous neither, as her house is within a few miles of that to which I was going.
I am delighted to find, by my Aunt's letter, that wretch Morton is in a fair way of recovery, since base as he has proved himself, I should have been shocked beyond expression to have been the cause of his death: she tells me, when he is able to travel he is going abroad and of course has no farther thoughts of persecuting me.
Thus you see, my dear Sophia
