I find that all is not as it should be between you and my nephew
Lovelace. It will very much afflict me, and all his friends, if he has
been guilty of any designed baseness to a lady of your character and
merit.
We have been long in expectation of an opportunity to congratulate you
and ourselves upon an event most earnestly wished for by us all; since
our hopes of him are built upon the power you have over him: for if
ever man adored a woman, he is that man, and you, Madam, are that
woman.
Miss Montague, in her last letter to me, in answer to one of mine,
inquiring if she knew from him whether he could call you his, or was
likely soon to have that honour, has these words: ‘I know not what to
make of my cousin Lovelace, as to the point your Ladyship is so earnest
about. He sometimes says he is actually married to Miss Cl. Harlowe: at
other times, that it is her own fault if he be not.—He speaks of her
not only with love but with reverence: yet owns, that there is a
misunderstanding between them; but confesses that she is wholly
faultless. An angel, and not a woman, he says she is: and that no man
living can be worthy of her.’—
This is what my niece Montague writes.
God grant, my dearest young lady, that he may not have so heinously
offended you that you cannot forgive him! If you are not already
married, and refuse to be his, I shall lose all hopes that he ever will
marry, or be the man I wish him to be. So will Lord M. So will Lady
Sarah Sadleir.
I will now answer your questions: but indeed I hardly know what to
write, for fear of widening still more the unhappy difference between
you. But yet such a young lady must command every thing from me. This
then is my answer: