proposals: I beseech you, let her not know anything of them: Abase not so much, in her eye, the man who presumes on her favour for the happiness of the rest of his life, by supposing (Your supposition, Sir, may have weight with her) he could value her the more for such an addition to her fortune. No, Sir: Let Miss Byron (satisfied with the consciousness of a worth which all the world acknowleges) in one of the most solemn events of her life look round among her congratulating friends with that modest confidence which the sense of laying a high obligation on a favoured object gives to diffident merit; and which the receiving of favours from all her friends, as if to supply a supposed defective worth, must either abate; or, if it do not, make her think less of the interested man, who could submit to owe such obligations.
If these friendly expostulations conclude against the offer of your generous friend, they equally do so against that of Mr. Selby. Were that Gentleman and his Lady the parents of Miss Byron, the case would be different: But Miss Byron's fortune is an ascertained one; and Mr. Selby has relations who stand in an equal degree of consanguinity to him, and who are all intitled, by their worthiness, to his favour. My best respects and thanks are however due; and I beg you

will make my acknowledgments accordingly, as well to your worthy friend, as to Mr. Selby.
I take the liberty to send you down the rent-roll of my English estate. Determine for me as you please, my dearest Mr. Deane. Only take this caution—Affront me not a second time; but let the settlements be such, as may be fully answerable to my fortune; altho', in the common methods of calculation, it may exceed that of the dear Lady That you may be the better judge of this, you will find a brief particular of my Irish Estate, subjoined to the other.
I was intending, when I received yours, to do myself the honour of a visit to Selby-house. I am impatient to throw myself at the feet of my dear Miss Byron, and to commend myself to the favour of Mr. and Mrs. Selby, and every one of a family I am prepared by their characters, as well as by their relation to Miss Byron, to revere and love. But as you seem to choose that the requisite preliminaries should be first adjusted by pen and ink, I submit, tho' with reluctance, to that course