--who made me many professions at parting, and wanted me vastly to name
some way in which he could be useful to me; but the relying on
_acquaintances_, or _seeking_ of friendships, is a fault which
I think I shall always have prudence to avoid.

"Lissy begins to be tormented again with the tooth-ache;--otherwise, we
are all well.

"I am, Sir, your sincerely dutiful and affectionate son,

"Friday, Feb. 29.

"R. B. SHERIDAN.

"I beg you will not judge of my attention to the improvement of my hand-
writing by this letter, as I am out of the way of a better pen."

Charles Sheridan, now one-and-twenty, the oldest and gravest of the
party, finding his passion for Miss Linley increase every day, and
conscious of the imprudence of yielding to it any further, wisely
determined to fly from the struggle altogether. Having taken a solemn
farewell of her in a letter, which his youngest sister delivered, he
withdrew to a farm-house about seven or eight miles from Bath, little
suspecting that he left his brother in full possession of that heart, of
which he thus reluctantly and hopelessly raised the siege. Nor would
this secret perhaps have been discovered for some time, had not another
lover, of a less legitimate kind than either, by the alarming
importunity of his courtship, made an explanation on all sides
necessary.