lady has spirits that will make her young a long time, and the lover
is a mighty sober man?--I think, verily, I could like him better for a
papa, than for a nearer relation: and they are strange admirers of one
another.

But allow me a perhaps still better (and, as to years, more suitable
and happier) disposal; for the man at least.--What think you, my dear,
of compromising with your friends, by rejecting both men, and
encouraging my parader?--If your liking one of the two go no farther
than conditional, I believe it will do. A rich thought, if it obtain
your approbation! In this light, I should have a prodigious respect
for Mr. Hickman; more by half than I can have in the other. The vein
is opened--Shall I let it flow? How difficult to withstand
constitutional foibles!

Hickman is certainly a man more in your taste than any of those who
have hitherto been brought to address you. He is mighty sober, mighty
grave, and all that. Then you have told me, that he is your
favourite. But that is because he is my mother's perhaps. The man
would certainly rejoice at the transfer; or he must be a greater fool
than I take him to be.

O but your fierce lover would knock him o' the head--I forgot that!--
What makes me incapable of seriousness when I write about Hickman?--
Yet the man so good a sort of man in the main!--But who is perfect?
This is one of my foibles: and it is something for you to chide me
for.

You believe me to be very happy in my prospect in relation to him:
because you are so very unhappy in the foolish usage you meet with,