tle and ridiculous: I
know when a man is superior to me and give him all due respect; he will
be the last to laugh at me; and as for the rest I feel that I make an
impression upon them which insures me personal respect while I am in
sight, whatever they may say when my back is turned.

The Misses ---- are very kind to me, but they have lately displeased me
much, and in this way: Now I am coming the Richardson! On my return, the
first day I called, they were in a sort of taking or bustle about a
Cousin of theirs, who, having fallen out with her Grandpapa in a serious
manner, was invited by Mrs. ---- to take asylum in her house. She is an
East-Indian, and ought to be her grandfather's heir. At the time I
called, Mrs. ---- was in conference with her upstairs, and the young
ladies were warm in her praises downstairs, calling her genteel,
interesting and a thousand other pretty things to which I gave no heed,
not being partial to nine-days' wonders--Now all is completely
changed--they hate her, and from what I hear she is not without faults
of a real kind: but she has others, which are more apt to make women of
inferior charms hate her. She is not a Cleopatra, but is, at least, a
Charmian. She has a rich Eastern look; she has fine eyes and fine
manners. When she comes into the room she makes an impression the same
as the Beauty of a Leopardess. She is too fine and too conscious of
herself to repulse any Man who may address her; from habit she thinks
that nothing _particular_. I always find myself more at ease with such
a woman: the picture before me always gives me a life and animation
which I cannot possibly feel with anything inferior. I am at such times
too much occupied in admiring to be awkward or in a tremble: I forget
myself entirely, because I live in her. You will, by this time, think
that I am in love with her, so, before I go any further, I will tell you
I am not. She kept me awake one night, as a tune of Mozart's might do. I
speak of the thing as a pastime and an amusement, than which I can feel
none deeper than a conversation with an imperial woman, the very "yes"
and "no" of whose life is to me a banquet. I don't cry to take the moon
home with me in my pocket, nor do I fret to leave her behind me. I like
her, and her like, because one has no _sensations_; what we both are is
taken for granted. You will suppose I have by this had much talk with
her--no such thing; there are the Misses ----on the look out. They th