melworth-hall.

The concern I feel for your happiness is so strong as almost to obliterate, at times, the remembrance of my own sorrows. You will, perhaps, think me ungrateful in condemning your conduct, since the particulars you communicate of it have so happy an effect; but I would, most willingly, submit to that reproach, could any exertion of my friendship prove instrumental in disentangling you from the web which Fanny Elwood's art, assisted by the impetuosity of your passion, is preparing for you. Oh! Charles! Charles! take care what you are about; you are on the brink of a dangerous precipice; another step may plunge you into irretrievable misery! Do not suffer your rashness to be the destruction of all your prospects of felicity. Depend upon it, you are deceived in the idea your imagination/ has formed of Fanny Elwood's mind: – you may remember, I told you so, when I first saw her. I liked not her behavior at the concert: I liked it less the day following. You were charmed with her face and person; and, having no leasure to examine her mental qualifications, contentedly supposed the two former to be a clear index of the latter. – With me it was different, quite; – I regarded every look, motion, and word, with a scrutinizing eye; and, on the result of my observations, my judgment pronounced her wholly unworthy to be ranked even amongst your common acquaintance. With the sincerity of true friendship, I told you my opinion immediately as we quitted her presence; and, I think, you must allow me to have been then totally unprejudiced by any knowledge of her situation and circumstances. Ineffectual, however, was all I could urge in opposition to your farther pursuit of her; she had spread her snare with success.

On our return to Fir-grove you talked of her with rapture, and delineated her, to your father, as superior to all the rest of her/ sex. I wondered at your infatuation, but was silent on the subject.