xpression
of pensive admiration. He is certainly very handsome; and yet more,
there is an openness in his manner that must be highly prepossessing,
and I am sure she feels it so. Thoughtful and pensive in general, her
countenance always brightens into a smile when Reginald says anything
amusing; and, let the subject be ever so serious that he may be
conversing on, I am much mistaken if a syllable of his uttering escapes
her. I want to make him sensible of all this, for we know the power
of gratitude on such a heart as his; and could Frederica's artless
affection detach him from her mother, we might bless the day which
brought her to Churchhill. I think, my dear mother, you would not
disapprove of her as a daughter. She is extremely young, to be sure,
has had a wretched education, and a dreadful example of levity in her
mother; but yet I can pronounce her disposition to be excellent, and her
natural abilities very good. Though totally without accomplishments, she
is by no means so ignorant as one might expect to find her, being fond
of books and spending the chief of her time in reading. Her mother
leaves her more to herself than she did, and I have her with me as much
as possible, and have taken great pains to overcome her timidity. We
are very good friends, and though she never opens her lips before her
mother, she talks enough when alone with me to make it clear that, if
properly treated by Lady Susan, she would always appear to much greater
advantage. There cannot be a more gentle, affectionate heart; or more
obliging manners, when acting without restraint; and her little cousins
are all very fond of her.

Your affectionate daughter,

C. VERNON

XIX

LADY SUSAN TO MRS. JOHNSON

Churchhill.

You will be eager, I know, to hear something further of Frederica, and
perhaps may think me negligent for not writing before. She arrived with
her uncle last Thursday fortnight, when, of course, I lost no time in
demanding the cause of her behaviour; and soon found myself to have been
perfectly right in attributing it to my own letter. The prospect of
it frightened her so thoroughly, that, with a mixture of true girlish
perverseness and folly, she resolved on getting out of the house and
proceeding directly by the stage to her friends, the Clarkes; and had
really got as far as the length of two streets in her journey when
she was fortunately missed, pursued, and overtaken. Such was the first
distinguished ex