University of Virginia Library

September 25.—

Mr. Arnold has so many advocates here, that his interest cannot fail of being promoted. Mrs. Vere

admires him; the Dean commends him; my mother praises him; lady Grimston extols him to the skies. No one is silent, but the young girl that I mentioned to you before; she only colours and hangs down her head when he is spoken of. I really begin to fear that the poor thing loves him; but he never made any addresses to her, and I hope does not suspect it.

Things are now gone so far, that my mother and lady Grimston talked to-day of settlements. Mr. Arnold receives but twelve hundred pounds a year from his estate; his brother's widow, as I have already told you, having a jointure upon it of three hundred pounds a year. She lives intirely in London, and is, I am told, a very imprudent woman, and not at all esteemed by the family. The elder Mr. Arnold and she were married several years, but never had a child; the last two years of his life his wife and he lived separate, her conduct having given room for some suspicions very injurious to her husband's honour.

The Arnold estate was originally a very considerable one, but has been dissipated by the extravagance of the successive possessors. What remains, however, is quite clear, and is likely to be kept so by the good management of the present owner. His late brother was exceedingly remiss in his affairs, and spent most of his time in London; and if it had not been for Mr. Arnold, the mansion-house would have fallen to the ground; but his brother lent it to him, and he kept it in repair for his own use, as he is fond of the place: though he has a pretty house in Kent, belonging to another estate of abut three hundred pounds a year, which came to him by his mother, for he is the son of a second marriage. And this, till his brother's death, was the whole of his income; but he is so good an oeconomist, that he always made a genteeller figure on his three hundred pounds a year, than his brother did on twelve.

My mother, who you know is integrity itself, thinks that I ought not to have more settled on me than the widow of Mr.

Arnold's brother had, whose fortune was superior to mine. Mr. Arnold makes a much handsomer proposal; lady Grimston is for laying hold of it. The dean was for striking a medium. I do not care how they settle it; but I fancy my mother will have her own way in this.

She purposes going to town next week, that the wedding—(bless me! whose wedding is it that I am talking of so coolly?) well—that it may be celebrated in her own house. This to be sure will send Sir George directly out of it. I cannot help it; I am born to give, and to receive vexation.

Mr. Arnold speaks of taking a house in London, where my mother is to have an apartment whenever she chooses to be in town. This is a pleasing circumstance to me; and she likewise proposes our being sometimes with her at Sidney Castle. That is a prospect which loses much of its charms, by the reflection that my dear Cecilia is not there.