rselves? And at last, when arrived at the old age we
covet, one heavy loss or deprivation having succeeded another, we see
ourselves stript, as I may say, of every one we loved; and find ourselves
exposed, as uncompanionable poor creatures, to the slights, to the
contempts, of jostling youth, who want to push us off the stage, in hopes
to possess what we have:--and, superadded to all, our own infirmities
every day increasing: of themselves enough to make the life we wished for
the greatest disease of all! Don't you remember the lines of Howard,
which once you read to me in my ivy-bower?*

* These are the lines the lady refers to:

From death we rose to life: 'tis but the same,
Through life to pass again from whence we came.
With shame we see our PASSIONS can prevail,
Where reason, certainty, and virtue fail.
HONOUR, that empty name, can death despise; |
SCORN'D LOVE to death, as to a refuge, flies; |
And SORROW waits for death with longing eyes. |
HOPE triumphs o'er the thoughts of death; and FATE
Cheats fools, and flatters the unfortunate.
We fear to lose, what a small time must waste,
Till life itself grows the disease at last.
Begging for life, we beg for more decay,
And to be long a dying only pray.

In the disposition of what belongs to me, I have endeavoured to do every
thing in the justest and best manner I could think of; putting myself in
my relations' places, and, in the greater points, ordering my matters as
if no misunderstanding had happened.

I hope they will not think much of some bequests where wanted, and where
due from my gratitude: but if they should, what is done, is done; and I
cannot now help it. Yet I must repeat, that I hope, I hope, I have
pleased every one of them. For I would not, on any account, have it
thought that, in my last disposition, any thing undaughterly, unsisterly,
or unlike a kinswoman, should have had place in a mind that is a truly
free (as I will presume to say) from all resentment, that it now
overflows with gratitude and blessings for the good I have received,
although it be not all that my heart wished to receive. Were it even an
hardship that I was not favoured with more, what is it but an hardship
of half a year, against the most indulgent goodness of eighteen years and
an half, that ever was shown to a daughter?

My cousin, you tell me, thinks I was off my guard, and that I