him.


CHARLOTTE

His conversation is like a rich, old-fashioned bro-
cade,--it will stand alone; every sentence is a sen-
timent. Now you may judge what a time I had
with him, in my twelve months' visit to my father.
He read me such lectures, out of pure brotherly affec-
tion, against the extremes of fashion, dress, flirting, and
coquetry, and all the other dear things which he knows
I doat upon, that I protest his conversation made me
as melancholy as if I had been at church; and heaven
knows, though I never prayed to go there but on one
occasion, yet I would have exchanged his conversa-
tion for a psalm and a sermon. Church is rather
melancholy, to be sure; but then I can ogle the beaux,
and be regaled with "here endeth the first lesson," but
his brotherly here, you would think had no end. You
captivate him! Why, my dear, he would as soon fall
in love with a box of Italian flowers. There is Maria,
now, if she were not engaged, she might do something.
Oh! how I should like to see that pair of pensorosos
together, looking as grave as two sailors' wives of a
stormy night, with a flow of sentiment meandering
through their conversation like purling streams in
modern poetry.