Your ladyship's delicate light brown is extermely beautiful, and infinitely better becomes your complexion and features than would that lovely shining auburn, which suits best with my girl's. You must know, Pamela, I always called you my girl to her, as I do frequently to yourself and others. So she excels me there, I find! I don't say so. Well, but as to the FOREHEAD, Mr. B—? Indeed, madam, my girl has some advantage, I presume to think, in her forehead: she has a noble openness and freedom there, which bespeaks her mind, and everybody's favour, the moment she appears: not but that your ladyship's, next to hers, is the finest I ever saw. So Next to hers! rubbing her forehead-well, BROWS, Mr. B-? Your ladyship's fine arch-brow is a beauty in your fair face, that a pencil cannot imitate; but then your fairer hair shows it not to that advantage, I must needs say, which her darker hair gives to hers; for, as to COMPLEXION, you are both so charmingly fair, that I cannot, for my life, tell to which to give the preference. Well, well, foolish man, said she peevishly, thou art strangely taken with thy girl!-I wish thou wouldst go about thy business-what signifies a little bad weather to men!—But if her complexion is as good as mine, it must look better, because of her dark hair.-I shall come poorly off, I find -Let's have the EYES, however. For black eyes in my girl, and blue in your ladyship, they are both the loveliest I ever beheld.-And, Pamela, I was wicked enough to say, that it would be the sweetest travelling in the world, to have you both placed at fifty miles distance from each other, and to pass the prime of one's life from black to blue, and from blue to black; and it would be impossible to know which to prefer, but the present. Ah! naughty Mr. B—! said I, were you not worse than the countess a great deal? The countess is not bad, my dear. fault. But what, sir, did she say to you? I only was in Say! Why the saucy lady did what very few ladies have ever done: she made the powder fly out of my wig, by a smart cuff with her nimble fingers. And how, sir, did you take that? How, my dear!-Why, I kissed her in revenge. Fine doings between two Platonics! thought I. But I will own to you, madam, that my vanity in this comparison was too much soothed, not to wish to hear how it was carried on. Well, sir, did you proceed further in your comparison? I knew, my dear, that you would not let me finish at half your picture-O Pamela! who says you are absolutely perfect? Who says there is no sex in your mind? and tapped my neck. All is owing, sir, to the pride I take in your opinion. I care not how indifferent I appear in the eyes of all the world besides. The CHEEK came next, proceeded Mr. B. I allowed her ladyship to have a livelier carmine in hers; and that it was somewhat rounder, her ladyship being a little plumper than my girl; but that your face, my dear, being rather smaller featured of the two, there was an inimitably finer turn in your cheek than I had ever seen in my life in any lady's. Her ladyship, he said, stroked her cheek bones, which, however, madam, I think are far from being high (though to be sure, she is a little larger featured, in excellent proportion for all that, as she is of a taller and a larger make than me), and said very well, sir; you are determined to mortify me. But, added her ladyship (which showed, madam, she little depended upon Platonicism in him), if you have a view in this, you will be greatly mistaken, I'll assure you: for, let me tell you, sir, the lady who can think meanly of herself, is any man's purchase. The NOSE I left in doubt, said Mr. B- but allowed that each was exquisitely beautiful on its own proper face. Her ladyship was sure of a preference in her MOUTH. I allowed that her LIPS were somewhat plumper-and saluting her by surprise (for which I had much ado to preserve my wig from another disorder), a little softer, of consequence; but not quite so red-for said I, I never saw a lip of so rich and balmy a red in my life as my girl's. But your SMILES, madam, are more bewitchingly free and attractive; for my girl is a little too grave. As to TEETH, charming as your ladyship's are, I think hers not a whit inferior in whiteness and regularity. Her CHIN is a sweet addition to her face, by that easy soft half round, that looks as if nature had begun at top, and gave that as her finishing stroke to the rest: while, my dear lady, yours is a little, little too strong featured; but such as so infinitely becomes your face, that my girl's chin would not have half the beauty upon your face. Her EARS, my lady, are just such as your own:-Must they not be beautiful then?-Her NECK, though it must not presume-let me see, madam, approaching her (keep your distance, sir! I was forced to do so)-though it must not pretend to excel yours for whiteness, yet, except yours, did I never see any neck so beautiful. But your ladyship, it must be confessed, being a little plumper in person, has the advantage here. I had a smart rap on my knuckles with her fan. And she would hear no more. But was resolved she would see you, she said. And, my dear, I am the more particular in repeating this comparative description of the two charmingest persons in England, because you will see the reason (and that it was not to insult you,* as you rightly judged in your letter to my sister, but to your advantage) that I gave way to the importunity of the countess to see you; for I little thought you were so well acquainted with our intimacy; much less, that we had been made more intimate to you, than ever, in *See p. 179, line 26. truth, we were, or perhaps might have been: And when I asked you, why you were not more richly dressed, and had not your jewels? you may believe (as I had no reason to doubt that the countess would come in all her ornaments) I was not willing my girl should give way to the noble emulatress in anything; being concerned for your own honour, as well as mine, in the superiority of beauty I had so justly given you. Well, sir, to be sure this was kind, very kind; and little was I disposed (knowing what I knew) to pass so favourable a construction on your generosity to me. My question to her ladyship, continued Mr. B at going away, whether you were not the charmingest girl in the world? which, seeing you together at one view, rich as she was dressed, and plain as you, gave me the double pleasure (a pleasure she said afterwards, I exulted in) of deciding in your favour; my readiness to explain to you what we both said, and her not ungenerous answer, I thought would have entitled me to a better return than a flood of tears; which confirmed me that your past uneasiness was a jealousy I was not willing to allow in you; though I should have been more indulgent to it, had I known the grounds you thought you had for it; and this was the reason of my leaving you so abruptly as I did. Here, madam, Mr. B― broke off, referring to another time the conclusion of his narrative. And having written a great deal, I will here also close this letter (though possibly I may not send it till I send the conclusion of this story in my next), with the assurance that I am Your ladyship's obliged sister and servant, P. B. MY DEAR LADY,-Now I will proceed with my former subject; and with the greater pleasure, as what follows makes still more in favour of the countess's character than what went before, although that set it in a better light than it had once appeared to me in. I began as follows: Will you be pleased, sir, to favour me with the continuation of our last subject? I will, my dear. You left off, sir, with acquitting me (as knowing what I knew) for breaking out into that flood of tears which occasioned your abrupt departure. But, dear sir, will you be pleased to satisfy me about that affecting information of your intention, and my lady's, to live at Tunbridge together? 'Tis absolutely malice and falsehood. Our intimacy had not proceeded so far; and thoughtless as my sister's letters suppose the lady, she would have spurned at such a proposal, I daresay. Well; but then, sir, as to the expression to her uncle, that she had rather have been a certain gentleman's second wife? I believe she might, in a passion, say something like it to him. He had been teasing her (from the time that I held an argument in favour of that foolish topic polygamy, in his company, and his niece's, and in that of her sister and the viscount) with cautions against conversing with a man who, having, as he was pleased to say behind my back, married beneath him, wanted to engage the affections of a lady of birth, in order to recover, by doubling the fault upon her, the reputation he had lost. She despised his insinuation enough to answer him, that she thought my arguments in behalf of polygamy were convincing. This set him a raving, and he threw some coarse reflections upon her, which could not be repeated, |