My dear Sir,--I have this moment received your letter, which has given
me more astonishment than I ever felt before. I am to thank my sister, I
suppose, for having represented me in such a light as to injure me in your
opinion, and give you all this alarm. I know not why she should choose to
make herself and her family uneasy by apprehending an event which no one
but herself, I can affirm, would ever have thought possible. To impute such
a design to Lady Susan would be taking from her every claim to that
excellent understanding which her bitterest enemies have never denied her;
and equally low must sink my pretensions to common sense if I am suspected
of matrimonial views in my behaviour to her. Our difference of age must be
an insuperable objection, and I entreat you, my dear father, to quiet your
mind, and no longer harbour a suspicion which cannot he more injurious to
your own peace than to our understandings. I can have no other view in
remaining with Lady Susan, than to enjoy for a short time (as you have
yourself expressed it) the conversation of a woman of high intellectual
powers. If Mrs. Vernon would allow something to my affection for herself
and her husband in the length of my visit, she would do more justice to us
all; but my sister is unhappily prejudiced beyond the hope of conviction
against Lady Susan. From an attachment to her husband, which in itself does
honour to both, she cannot forgive the endeavours at preventing their
union, which have been attributed to selfishness in Lady Susan; but in this
case, as well as in many others, the world has most grossly injured that
lady, by supposing the worst where the motives of her conduct have been
doubtful. Lady Susan had heard something so materially to the disadvantage
of my sister as to persuade her that the happiness of Mr. Vernon, to whom
she was always much attached, would be wholly destroyed by the marriage.
And this circumstance, while it explains the true motives of Lady Susan's
conduct, and removes all the blame which has been so lavished on her, may
also convince us how little the general report of anyone ought to be