to explore Etna—we will hope his fires will sleep, for I shall have quite enough with either hand—a lover 'sighing like furnace,' as the craft are wont. 'Prepare our dear Mary for what is prepared for her' (as our old divines say)—a penitent lover who knows her worth, and will give her the rank she truly merits, and the fortune she will spend well and wisely. You, dear Isabella, will, I trust, obviate all difficulties of the brown merino character. I wish you both to be out of mourning when we return, unless it will give pain to dear Riccardini, for Mary, though very fair, is too thin for black, and you too dark. See what a coxcomb you have made of the old fellow; like Benedict, I shall be thinking a whole morning of the cut of my own doublet next—n'importe, I am willing to grow young by contagion.
"I cannot close this without giving you some pain, dear Isabella. I understand, from Lieutenant Hales, that Lady Anne gave a splendid party on the occasion of Louisa's marriage (indeed, we heard of it, I remember); but, I mean to say, she has so placed herself in difficulties, by increased expenditure, as to offend Lord Rotheles exceedingly, who threatens to withdraw his allowance, which Allerton says is the more likely to take place, because, to his own knowledge, the countess is her enemy. If, from the letters you receive (or have received), you find she is embarrassed, write immediately to Mr. Penrhyn, telling him to advance her, on my behalf, from two hundred and fifty to three
