Oh that I may be deceived, but I fear you expect too much from my
brother. Oh that he might be worthy of my Anna! Not for my own sake;
for, as she truly says, we [That is our souls, for I know of no other
we]. We cannot be more akin; but for his own. He is the son of my
beloved mother, and most devoutly do I wish he might be found deserving
of her and you. He would then be more deserving than any man, at least
any young man, I have ever known. Though brother and sister, he and I
may be said to have but little acquaintance. He has always been either
at school, or at college, or in town, or on his travels, or in some
place where I did not happen to be, except for short intervals. I have
told you that his person is not displeasing, that his temper appears to
be prompt and daring, but gay, and that his manners I doubt are of that
free kind which our young gentlemen affect.

To say the truth however, I have heard much in favour of Coke Clifton;
but then it has generally been either from persons whose good word was
in my opinion no praise, or from others who evidently meant to be civil
to me, or to the family, by speaking well of my brother. I believe him
to have much pride, some ambition, a high sense of fashionable honour;
that he spurns at threats, disdains reproof, and that he does not want
generosity, or those accomplishments which would make him pass with the
world for a man whose alliance would be desirable. But the husband of
my Anna [you perceive I have caught your tone, and use the word husband
as familiarly as if there were any serious intention of such an event,
and as if it were any thing more than the sportive effusion of fancy,
or rather the momentary expansion of friendship] the husband of my Anna
ought to be more, infinitely more, than what the world understands by
such phrases; if it can be said to understand anything. Forgive the
jingle, but, to pair with her, he ought to be her peer. And yet if she
wait till time shall send her such a one, and that one every way proper