Can it be right, my dear Sir, that this promising young creature should be deprived of the fortune and rank of life to which she is lawfully entitled, and which you have prepared her to support and to use so nobly? To despise riches may, indeed, be philosophic; but to dispense them worthily must, surely, be more beneficial to mankind.
Perhaps a few years, or indeed a much shorter time, may make this scheme impracticable: Sir John, tho' yet young, leads a life too dissipated for long duration; and when too late, we may regret that something was not sooner done: for it will be next to impossible, after he is gone, to settle or prove anything with his heirs and executors.
Pardon the earnestness with which I write my sense of this affair; but your charming ward has made me so warmly her friend, that I cannot be indifferent upon a subject of such importance to her future life.
Adieu, my dear Sir;-send me speedily an answer to this remonstrance, and believe me to be, -c. M. HOWARD.