thoughtful of you, and remember you in my prayers, as becomes Your ever-dutiful daughter, P. B My respects to all your good neighbours in general. Mr. Longman will visit you now and then. Mrs. Jervis will take one journey to Kent, she says, and it shall be to accompany my babies, when they are carried down to you. Poor Jonathan, and she, good folks! seem declining in their health, which much grieves me.-Once more, God send us all a happy meeting, if it be His blessed will! Adieu, adieu, my dear parents! Your ever dutiful, &c. LETTER XCIX. Mrs. B- to Lady G MY DEAR LADY G—,—I received your last letter at Paris, as we were disposing everything for our return to England, after an absence of near two years; in which, as I have informed you from time to time, I have been a great traveller, into Holland, the Netherlands, through the most considerable provinces of France into Italy; and in our return to Paris again (the principal place of our residence), through several parts of Germany. I told you of the favours and civilities we received at Florence from the then Countess Dowager of —, who, with her humble servant Lord C (that had so assiduously attended her for so many months in Italy), accompanied us from Florence to Innspruck. Her ladyship made that worthy lord happy in about a month after she parted from us; and the noble pair gave us an opportunity at Paris, in their way to England, to return some of the civilities which we received from them in Italy and they are now arrived at her ladyship's seat on the Forest. : Her lord is exceedingly fond of her, as he well may; for she is one of the most charming ladies in England; and behaves to him with so much prudence and respect that they are as happy in each other as can be wished. And let me just add, that both in Italy and at Paris, Mr. B- -'s demeanour and her ladyship's to one another, was so nobly open, and unaffectedly polite, as well as highly discreet, that neither Lord C- who had once been jealous of Mr. B—, nor the other party, who had had a tincture of the same yellow evil, as you know, because of the countess, had so much as a shadow of uneasiness remaining on that occasion. Lord Davers has had his health (which had begun to decline in England) so well, that there was no persuading Lady Davers to return before now; although I begged and prayed I might not have another little Frenchman, for fear they should, as they grew up, forget, as I pleasantly used to say, the obligations which their parentage lays them under to dearer England. And now, my dearest friend, I have shut up my rambles for my whole life; for three little English folks and one little Frenchman (but a charming baby, as well as the rest, Charley by name), and a near prospect of a further increase, you will say, are family enough to employ all my cares at home. I have told you, from time to time, although I could not write to you so often as I would, because of our being constantly in motion, what was most worthy of your knowledge relating to our particular, and how happy we have all been in one another. And I have the pleasure to confirm to you what I have several times written, that Mr. B and my Lord and Lady Davers are all that I could wish and hope for, with regard to their first duties. Indeed, indeed, we are a happy family, united by the best and most solid ties! Miss Goodwin is a charming young lady!—I cannot express how much I love her! She is a perfect mistress of the French language, and speaks Italian very prettily! And as to myself, I have improved so well under my dear tutor's lessons, together with the opportunity of conversing with the politest and most learned gentry of different nations, that I will hold a conversation with you in two or three languages, if you please, when I have the happiness to see you. There's a learned boaster for you, my dear friend (if the knowledge of different languages makes one learned). But I shall bring you a heart as entirely English as ever, for all that! We landed on Thursday last at Dover, and directed our course to the dear farmhouse; and you can better imagine than I express, what a mecting we had with my dear father and mother, and my beloved Davers and Pamela, who are charming babies.-But is not this the language of every fond mamma? Miss Goodwin is highly delighted now with my sweet little Pamela, and says, She shall be her sister indeed! For, madam, said she, miss is a beauty!—And we see no French beauties like master Davers and miss. Beauty! my dear Miss Goodwin, said I; what is beauty, if she be not a good girl!-Beauty is but a specious, and as it may happen, a dangerous recommendation, a mere skin-deep perfection; and if, as she grows up, she is not as good as my Miss Goodwin, she shall be none of my girl. What adds to my pleasure, my dear friend, is to see them both so well got over the small-pox. It has been as happy for them as it was for their mamma and her Billy, that they had it under so skilful and kind a manager in that distemper, as my dear mother. I wish, if it please God, it was as happily over with my little pretty Frenchman. Everybody is surprised to see what the past two years have done for Miss Goodwin and my Billy.-Oh my dear friend! they are both of them almost-nay, quite, I think, for their years, all that I wish them to be. In order to make them keep their French, which miss so well speaks, and Billy so prettily prattles, I oblige them, when they talk to one another, and are in the nursery, to speak nothing else: but at table, except on particular occasions, when French may be spoken, they are to speak in English; that is to say, when they do speak: for I tell them that little masters must do nothing but ask questions for information, and say Yes, or No, till their papas or mammas give them leave to speak; nor little ladies neither, till they are sixteen; for, my dear loves, cry I, you would not speak before you know how: and knowledge is obtained by hearing, and not by speaking. And setting my Billy on my lap, in miss's presence, Here, said I, taking an ear in the fingers of each hand, are two ears, my Billy; and then pointing to his mouth, but one tongue, my love: so you must be sure to mind that you hear twice as much as you speak, even when you grow a bigger master than you are now. You have so many pretty ways to learn one, madam, says miss, now and then, that it is impossible we should not regard what you say to us! Several French tutors, when we were abroad, were recommended to Mr. B. But there is one English gentleman, now on his travels with young Mr. R——, with whom Mr. B has agreed; and, in the meantime, my best friend is pleased to compliment me that the children will not suffer for want of a tutor, while I can take the pains I do which he will have to be too much for me; especially that now, on our return, my Davers and my Pamela are added to my cares. But what mother can take too much pains to cultivate the minds of her children?— If, my dear Lady G--, it were not for these frequent lyings-in-But this is the time of life-Though little did I think, so early, I should have so many careful blessings! I have as great credit as pleasure from my little family. All our neighbours here in Bedfordshire admire us more and more. You'll excuse my seeming (for it is but seeming) vanity; I hope I know better than to have it real— Never, says Lady Towers, who is still a single lady, did I see before, a lady so much advantaged by her residence in that fantastic nation (for she loves not the French), and who brought home with her nothing of their affectations!— She will have it that the French politeness, and the English frankness and plainness of heart, appear happily blended in all we say and do. And she makes me a thousand compliments upon Lord and Lady Davers's account, who, she would fain persuade me, owe a great deal of improvement (my lord in his conversation, and my lady in her temper) to living in the same house with us. Indeed my Lady Davers is exceeding kind and good to me, is always magnifying me to everybody, and says she knows not how to live from me; and that I have been a means of saving half a hundred souls, as well as her dear brother's. On an indisposition of my lord's at Montpelier, which made her ladyship very apprehensive, she declared, that were she to be deprived of his lordship, she would not let us rest till we had consented to her living with us; saying that we had room enough in Lincolnshire, and she would enlarge the Bedfordshire seat at her own expense. Mr. H- is Mr. H—— still; and that's the best I can say of him: for I verily think he is more an ape than His whole head is now French. 'Twas half so beWe had great difficulties with him abroad: his ever. fore. aunt and I endeavouring to give him a serious and religious turn, we had like to have turned him into a Roman Catholic. For he was pleased much with the showy part of that religion, and the fine pictures and decorations in the churches of Italy; and having got into company with a Dominican at Padua, a Franciscan at Milan, and a Jesuit at Paris, they lay so hard at him, in their turns, that we had like to have lost him to each assailant; so were forced to let him take his own course; for, his aunt would have it, that he had no other defence from the attacks of persons to make him embrace a faulty religion, than to permit him |