Mr. Reeves mentioning to him our past entertainment and company, Sir
John gave us such an account of Sir Hargrave as let me know that he is a
very dangerous and enterprising man. He says that, laughing and light as
he is in company, he is malicious, ill-natured, and designing, and
sticks at nothing to carry a point on which he has once set his heart.
He has ruined, Sir John says, three young creatures already, under vows
of marriage.

Could you have thought, my Lucy, that this laughing, fine-dressing man,
could have been a man of malice, and of resentment, a cruel man, yet Sir
John told two very bad stories of him.

But I had no need of these stories to determine me against receiving his
addresses. What I saw of him was sufficient.


_IV.--Miss Byron: In Continuation_


_Wednesday, February 8._ Sir Hargrave came before six o'clock. He was
richly dressed. He asked for my cousin Reeves, I was in my chamber,
writing.

He excused himself for coming so early on the score of his impatience.

Shall I give you, from my cousins, an account of the conversation before
I went down? You know Mrs. Reeves is a nice observer.

He had had, he told my cousins, a most uneasy time of it, ever since he
saw me. He never saw a woman before whom he could love as he loved me.