LETTER LIII.53.

　　To Miss Rivers, Clarges Street.

　　Jan.13, Eleven o’clock.

　　We passed a most agreable evening with your brother, though a large company, which is seldom the case: a most admirable supper, excellent wine, an elegant desertdessert of preserved fruits, and every body in spirits and good humor.

　　The Colonel was the soul of our entertainment: amongst his other virtues, he has the companionable and convivial ones to an immense degree, which I never had an opportunity of discovering so clearly before.He seemed charmed beyond words to see us all so happy: we staid till four o’clock in the morning, yet all complained to-day we came away too soon.

　　I need not tell you we had fiddles, for there is no entertainment in Canada without them: never was such a race of dancers.

　　One o’clock.

　　The dear man is come, and with an equipage which puts the Empress of Russia’s tranieau to shame.America never beheld any thing so brilliant:

　　“All other carrioles, at sight of this,

　　Hide their diminish’d heads.”

　　Your brother’s and Fitzgerald’s will never dare to appear now; they sink into nothing.

　　Seven in the evening.

　　Emily has been in tears in her chamber;’tis a letter of Mrs.Melmoth’s which has had this agreable effect; some wise advice, I suppose.Lord!how I hate people that give advice!don’t you, Lucy?

　　I don’t like this lover’s coming; he is almost as bad as a husband: I am afraid he will derange our little coterie; and we have been so happy, I can’t bear it.

　　Good night, my dear.

　　Yours,

　　A.Fermor. The History of Emily Montague