He certainly has an eye to
Emily, but behaves with great prudence towards her: yet every body but
she sees his regard for her: nobody but her guardian runs in her head;
and the more, as she really thinks it is a glory to love him, because of
his goodness. Every body, she says, has the same admiration of him, that
she has.
Mrs. Reeves desires me to acquaint you, that Miss Clements, having, by
the death of her mother and aunt, come into a pretty fortune, is
addressed to by a Yorkshire gentleman of easy circumstances, and is
preparing to leave the town, having other connexions in that county; but
that she intends to write to you before she goes, and to beg you to
favour her with now and then a letter.
I think Miss Clements is a good sort of young woman: but I imagined she
would have been one of those nuns at large, who need not make vows of
living and dying aunt Eleanors, or Lady Gertrudes; all three of them good
honest souls! chaste, pious, and plain. It is a charming situation, when
a woman is arrived at such a height of perfection, as to be above giving
or receiving temptation. Sweet innocents! They have my reverence, if
not my love. How would they be affronted, if I were to say pity!--I
think only of my two good aunts, at the present writing. Miss Clements,
you know, is a youngish woman; and I respect her much. One would not
jest upon the unsightliness of person, or plainness of feature: but think
you she will not be one of those, who twenty years hence may put in a
boast of her quondam beauty?
How I run on! I think I ought to be ashamed of myself.
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