FIR-GROVE.

Tho' your disapprobation of the object which my heart has made choice of, deprives me of the pleasure I have received heretofore from your participating in my concerns; yet, I must still continue my usual communications, in the pleasing hope that I shall be able to convince you that your judgment of Miss Elwood is erroneous. I set out for Leeds immediately after concluding my last, and put the poor beasts into a foam, and myself into a situation something similar, by my eagerness to get thither; but my hurry was unnecessary; for, to my extreme mortification, I found my Fanny surrounded by a room full of company, of both sexes, which obliged me to put a curb upon my joy at seeing her, – delicacy prohibiting any particular expression of my feelings in the presence of so many witnesses. I was, therefore, forced to wear the appearance of/ ease and content, while, in reality, I was full of impatience and anxiety. I talked politics with Mr. Elwood, without knowing which of us was for the ministry, or which for the opposition. I heard from Mrs. Elwood the very best way of making cowslip-wine and preserving gooseberries, without feeling the least degree of curiosity respecting either; and I sometimes joined the visitors in the dull, unmeaning, uninteresting, common-place topics: viz. weather, public amusements, dress, weddings, &c. &c. In this uncomfortable state was I held from six till half past nine o'clock, when the company took their leave. Mr. Elwood went out to join his bottle-companions, and Mrs. Elwood retiring to undress, I was, at length, left alone with my dear Fanny, when I gave way to the effusions of my fond heart without reserve, and confessed the painful restraint I had been under the preceding part of the evening. The sweet girl, however, made me ample compensation by the kindness of her behaviour, wholly free from the smallest tincture of affectation or prudery.