thou wert in proper company! I warrant those Goddesses have not wanted an adorer in our cousin Everard.
Mr. Gr. Dear Miss Charlotte, take care! I protest, you begin to talk with the spite of an old maid.
Miss Gr. There, brother! Do you hear the wretch? Will not you, knight-errand like, defend the cause of a whole class of distressed damsels, with our good Yorkshire aunt at the head of them?
Sir Ch. Those general prejudices and aspersions, Charlotte, are indeed unjust and cruel. Yet I am for having every-body marry. Bachelors, cousin Everard, and maids, when long single, are looked upon as houses long empty, which no-body cares to take. As the houses in time, by long disuse, will be thought by the vulgar haunted by evil spirits, so will the other, by the many, be thought possessed by no good ones.
The transition was some-how made from hence to the equitableness that ought to be in our judgements of one another. We must in these cases, said Sir Charles, throw merit in one scale, demerit in the other; and if the former weigh down the latter, we must in charity pronounce to the person's advantage. So it is humbly hoped we shall finally be judged ourselves: For who is faultless?
Yet, said he, for my own part, that I may not be wanting to prudence, I have sometimes where the merit is not very striking, allowed persons, at first acquaintance, a short lease only in my good opinion; some for three, some for six, some for nine, others for twelve months, renewable or not, as they answer

expectation. And by this meane I leave it to every one to make his own character with me; I preserve my charity, and my complacency; and enter directly, with frankness, into conversation with him; and generally continue that freedom to the end of the respective person's lease.
Miss Gr. I wonder how many of your leases, brother, have been granted to Ladies?
Sir Ch. Many, Charlotte, of the friendly sort: But the kind you archly mean, are out of the question at present. We were talking of esteem.
They insensibly led the conversation to Love and Courtship; and he said [What do you think he said, Lucy?] That he should not, perhaps, were he in Love, be over-forward to declare his passion by words; but rather shew it by his assiduities and veneration,