I look
upon her intimacy with those two sisters as the greatest
misfortune of her life and mine. They have been leading
her astray for years. Could she be detached from them!--
and sometimes I do not despair of it, for the affection
appears to me principally on their side. They are very
fond of her; but I am sure she does not love them as she
loves you. When I think of her great attachment to you,
indeed, and the whole of her judicious, upright conduct
as a sister, she appears a very different creature,
capable of everything noble, and I am ready to blame
myself for a too harsh construction of a playful manner.
I cannot give her up, Fanny. She is the only woman
in the world whom I could ever think of as a wife.
If I did not believe that she had some regard for me,
of course I should not say this, but I do believe it.
I am convinced that she is not without a decided preference.
I have no jealousy of any individual. It is the influence
of the fashionable world altogether that I am jealous of.
It is the habits of wealth that I fear. Her ideas are
not higher than her own fortune may warrant, but they
are beyond what our incomes united could authorise.
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