your care in despatching so speedily the business I desired you
to do. It is the last of that kind I shall trouble you with.
No more shall I write or receive letters to and from that
person. But lest you should run into a mistake and think we
have quarrelled, I assure you we are perfect friends; we think,
wish and judge alike, but what avails it? We are both
miserable. He has not differed with my mother, but she loves
him not, because she esteems him the unlucky cause of a deep
melancholy in a beloved child. For his own sake it is that I
cease writing, because it is now his interest to forget me.

Whether you will be engaged before thirty or not, I cannot
determine; but if my advice be worth listening to, never engage
your affections before your worldly affairs are in such a
position that you may marry very soon. The contrary practice
has proved very pernicious in our family; and were I to live my
time over again, and had the same experience as I have now, were
it for the best man in England, I would not wait one year.
I know you are a young man, encompassed with difficulties, that
has passed through many hardships already, and probably must
pass through many more before you are easy in the world; but,
believe me, if ever you come to suffer the torment of a hopeless
love, all other afflictions will seem small in comparison of it.
And that you may not think I speak at random, take some account
of my past life, more than ever I spoke to anyone.

After the fire, when I was seventeen years old, I was left alone
with my mother, and lived easy for one year, having most
necessaries, though few diversions, and never going abroad.
Yet after working all day I read some pleasant book at night,