Silleri, Nov. 20.

I have a thousand reasons, my dearest Madam, for intreating you to
excuse my staying some time longer at Quebec. I have the sincerest
esteem for Sir George, and am not insensible of the force of our
engagements; but do not think his being there a reason for my coming:
the kind of suspended state, to say no more, in which those engagements
now are, call for a delicacy in my behaviour to him, which is so
difficult to observe without the appearance of affectation, that his
absence relieves me from a very painful kind of restraint: for the same
reason, 'tis impossible for me to come up at the time he does, if I do
come, even though Miss Fermor should accompany me.

A moment's reflexion will convince you of the propriety of my
staying here till his mother does me the honor again to approve his
choice; or till our engagement is publicly known to be at an end. Mrs.
Clayton is a prudent mother, and a woman of the world, and may consider
that Sir George's situation is changed since she consented to his
marriage.

I am not capricious; but I will own to you, that my esteem for Sir
George is much lessened by his behaviour since his last return from
New-York: he mistakes me extremely, if he supposes he has the least
additional merit in my eyes from his late acquisition of fortune: on
the contrary, I now see faults in him which were concealed by the
mediocrity of his situation before, and which do not promise happiness
to a heart like mine, a heart which has little taste for the false
glitter of life, and the most lively one possible for the calm real
delights of friendship, and domestic felicity.