Countess of C—, and Jackey (who, as well as his uncle, talks of nothing else but you), send theirs; and so unnecessary compliment will be always excluded our correspondence.

LETTER XLIX.

Mrs. B to Lady Davers.

[In answer to the preceding.]

How you overwhelm me with your goodness, my dearest lady, in every word of your last welcome letter, is beyond my power to express! How nobly has your ladyship contrived, in your ever-valued present, to encourage a doubting and apprehensive mind! And how does it contribute. to my joy and my glory that I am deemed, by the noble sister of my best-beloved, not wholly unworthy of being the humble means to continue, and perhaps to perpetuate, a family so ancient and so honourable!

This, madam, when I contemplate, and look upon what I was what can I say-how shall I express the sense of the honour done me !-And when skipping over, for a few moments, the other engaging particulars in your ladyship's letter, I come to the last charming paragraph, I am doubly affected to see myself seemingly upbraided, but so politely emboldened to assume an appellation, that otherwise I hardly dared to assume.

I-humble I-who never had a sister before to find one now in Lady Davers! Oh, madam, you, and only you, can teach me words fit to express the joy and the gratitude that filled my delighted heart! But thus much I am taught, and thus much I can say, though at a loss for other words, that there is something more than the low-born can imagine in birth and education. This is so evident in your ladyship's actions, words, and manner, that it strikes

one with a becoming reverence; and we look up with awe to a condition we emulate in vain, when raised by partial favour, like what I have found; and are confounded when we see grandeur of soul joined with grandeur of birth and condition; and a noble lady acting thus nobly, as Lady Davers acts.

My best wishes, and a thousand blessings, attend your ladyship in all you undertake! And I am persuaded the latter will, and a peace and satisfaction of mind incomparably to be preferred to whatever else this world can afford, in the new regulations which you, and my dear lady countess, have set on foot in your families: And when I can have the happiness to know what they are, I shall, I am confident, greatly improve my own methods by them.

Were we to live for ever in this life, we might be careless and indifferent about these matters; but when such an uncertainty as to the time, and such a certainty as to the event, is before us, a prudent mind will be always preparing, till prepared; and what can be a better preparative than charitable actions to our fellow-creatures, in the eye of that Majesty which wants nothing of us Himself, but to do just and merciful things to one another?

Pardon me, my dearest lady, for this my free style. Methinks I am out of myself; I know not how to descend all at once from the height to which you have raised me: And you must forgive the reflections to which you yourself, and your own noble actions, have given birth.

Here, having taken respite a little, I find I naturally enough sink into body again. And will not your ladyship confine your expectations from me within narrower limits? -I hope you will.-For, oh, my excellent lady! I cannot even with my wishes so swiftly follow your expectations, if such they are! But, however, leaving futurity to HIM who only governs futurity, and who conducts us all, and our affairs, as shall best answer His own divine purposes, I will proceed, as well as I can, to obey your ladyship in those articles which are, at present, more within my own power.

My dear Miss Darnford, then, let me acquaint your ladyship, arrived here on Thursday last. She had given us notice, by a line, of the day she set out; and Sir Simon and Lady Darnford saw her ten miles on the way to the stagecoach in Sir Simon's coach, Mr. Murray attending her on horseback. They parted with her, as was easy to guess from her merit, with great tenderness; and we are to look upon the visit (as we do) as a high favour from her papa and mamma; who, however, charge her not to exceed a month in and out, which I regret much. Mr. B- kindly proposed to me, as she came in the stage-coach, attended with one maid-servant, to meet her part of the way in his coach and six, if, as he was pleased to say, it would not be too fatiguing to me; and we would go so early, as to dine at St. Alban's. I gladly consented, and we got thither about one o'clock; and while dinner was preparing, he was pleased to show me the great church there, and the curious vault of the good Duke of Gloucester, and also the monument of the great Lord Chancellor Bacon, in St. Michael's Church; all which, no doubt, your ladyship has seen.

There happened to be six passengers in the stage-coach, including Miss Darnford and her maid; and the dear young lady was exceedingly glad to be relieved from them, though the weather was cold enough, two of the passengers being not very agreeable company; one, a rough military man ; the other, a positive, humoursome old gentlewoman; and the other two, not such as she had reason to be loath to part with; two sisters, who jangled now and then, said she, as much as my sister, and my sister's sister.

Your ladyship will judge how joyful this meeting was to us both. Mr. B― was no less delighted, and said, he was infinitely obliged to Sir Simon for this precious trust.

I come with double pleasure, said she, to see the greatest curiosity in England, a husband and a wife, who have not, in so many months that you have been married, if I may believe report, and your letters, Mrs. B

pented.

once re

You are severe, Miss Darnford, replied Mr. B-, upon

people in the married state: I hope there are many such instances.

There might, returned she, if there were more such husbands as Mr. B— makes. I hated you once, and I thought you very wicked; but I revere you now.

If you will revere anybody, my dear Miss Darnford, said he, let it be this good girl; for it is all owing to her conduct and discretion that I make a tolerable husband. Were there more such wives, I am persuaded there would be more such husbands than there are.

Mr. B

You see, my dear, said I, what it is to be wedded to a generous man. by his noble treatment of me, creates a merit in me, and disclaims the natural effects of his own goodness.

Well, you're a charming couple-person and mind, I know not any equal either of you have.-But, Mr. BI will not compliment you too highly.-I may make you proud, for men are saucy creatures; but I cannot make your lady so And in this doubt of the one, and confidence in the other, I must join with you, that her merit is the greatest -since, excuse me, sir, her example has reformed her rake; and you have only confirmed in her the virtues you found ready formed to your hand.

That distinction, said Mr. B-, is worthy of Miss Darnford's judgment.

My dearest Miss Darnford, my dearest Mr. B————, said I, laying my hand upon the hand of each, how can you go on thus! As I look upon every kind thing two such dear friends say of me, as incentives for me to endeavour to deserve it, you must not task me too high; for then, instead of encouraging, you'll make me despair.

Mr. B clasped us both in his arms, and saluted each -and called us his two nonpareils.

He led us into the coach; and in a free, easy, joyful manner, not in the least tired or fatigued, did we reach the town and Mr. B's house; with which, and its furniture, and the apartments allotted for her, my dear friend is highly pleased.

But the dear lady put me into some little confusion, when she saw me first, taking notice of my improvements, as she called them, before Mr. B. I looked at him, and looked at her with a downcast eye. He smiled at her, and said, Would you, my good Miss Darnford, look so silly, after such a length of time, with a husband you had no occasion to be ashamed of?

No, indeed, sir, not I, I'll assure you: nor will I forgive those maiden airs in a wife so happy as you are.

I said nothing. But I wished myself, in mind and behaviour, to be just what Miss Darnford is.

But, my dear lady, Miss Darnford has had those early advantages from conversation which I had not; and so must never expect to know how to deport myself with that modest freedom and ease, which I know I want, and shall always want, although some of my partial favourers think I do not. For I am every day more and more sensible of the great difference there is between being used to the politest conversation as an inferior, and being born to bear a part in it: In the one, all is set, stiff, awkward, and the person just such an ape of imitation as poor I. In the other, all is natural ease and sweetness-like Miss Darnford.

Knowing this, I don't indeed aim at what I am sensible I cannot attain; and so, I hope, am less exposed to censure than I should be if I did. For I have heard Mr. Bobserve, with regard to gentlemen who build fine houses, and make fine gardens, and open fine prospects, that art should never take place of, but be subservient to, nature; and a gentleman, if he is confined to a situation, had better conform his designs to that, than to do as at Chatsworth was done; that is to say, level a mountain at a monstrous expense; which, had it been suffered to remain, in so wild and romantic a scene as Chatsworth affords, might have been made one of the greatest beauties of the place.

So I, madam, think I had better endeavour to make the best of those natural defects I cannot master, than, by assuming airs and dignities in appearance, to which I was not born, act neither part tolerably. By this means,