and there's no more to be said.--Only, my dear, I shall keep a good
look-out upon you; and so I hope you will be upon yourself; for it is
no manner of argument that because you would not be in love, you
therefore are not.--But before I part entirely with this subject, a
word in your ear, my charming friend--'tis only by way of caution, and
in pursuance of the general observation, that a stander-by is often a
better judge of the game than those that play.--May it not be, that
you have had, and have, such cross creatures and such odd heads to
deal with, as have not allowed you to attend to the throbs?--Or, if
you had them a little now and then, whether, having had two accounts
to place them to, you have not by mistake put them to the wrong one?

But whether you have a value for Lovelace or not, I know you will be
impatient to hear what Mrs. Fortescue has said of him. Nor will I
keep you longer in suspense.

An hundred wild stories she tells of him from childhood to manhood:
for, as she observed, having never been subject to contradiction, he
was always as mischievous as a monkey. But I shall pass over these
whole hundred of his puerile rogueries (although indicative ones, as I
may say) to take notice as well of some things you are not quite
ignorant of, as of others you know not, and to make a few observations
upon him and his ways.

Mrs. Fortescue owns, what every body knows, 'that he is notoriously,
nay, avowedly, a man of pleasure; yet says, that in any thing he sets
his heart upon or undertakes, he is the most industrious and
persevering mortal under the sun. He rests it seems not above six
hours in the twenty-four--any more than you. He delights in writing.
Whether at Lord M.'s, or at Lady Betty's, or Lady Sarah's, he has