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To Miss Rivers, Clarges Street.

Quebec, Oct. 6.

I am going, my Lucy.—I know not well whither I am going, but I will not stay to see this marriage. Could you have believed it possible—But what folly! Did I not know her situation from the first? Could I suppose she would break off an engagement of years, with a man who gives so clear a proof that he prefers her to all other women, to humor the frenzy of one who has never even told her he loved her?

Captain Fermor assures me all is settled but the day, and that she has promised to name that to-morrow.

I will leave Quebec to-night; no one shall know the road I take: I do not yet know it myself; I will cross over to Point Levi with my valet de chambre, and go wherever chance directs me. I cannot bear even to hear the day named. I am strongly inclined to write to her; but what can I say? I should betray my tenderness in spite of myself, and her compassion would perhaps disturb her approaching happiness: were it even possible she should prefer me to Sir George, she is too far gone to recede.

My Lucy, I never till this moment felt to what an excess I loved her.

Adieu! I shall be about a fortnight absent: by that time she will be embarked for England. I cannot bring myself to see her the wife of another. Do not be alarmed for me; reason and the impossibility of success will conquer my passion for this angelic woman; I have been to blame in allowing myself to see her so often.

Yours,

Ed. Rivers.