ith the better effect.

And so much for _your_ humble servant; and for Mr. Williams's and Mr.
Adams's matrimonial prospect;--and don't think me so disrespectful,
that I have mentioned my Polly's affair in the same letter with yours.
For in high and low (I forget the Latin phrase--I have not had a
lesson a long, long while, from my dear tutor) love is in all the
same!--But whether you'll like Mr. H. as well as Polly does Mr.
Adams, that's the question. But, leaving that to your own decision,
I conclude with one observation; that, although I thought our's was a
house of as little intriguing as any body's, since the dear master of
it has left off that practice, yet I cannot see, that any family can
be clear of some of it long together, where there are men and women
worth plotting for, as husbands and wives.

My best wishes and respects attend all your worthy neighbours. I hope
ere long, to assure them, severally (to wit, Sir Simon, my lady, Mrs.
Jones, Mr. Peters, and his lady and niece, whose kind congratulations
make me very proud, and very thankful) how much I am obliged to them;
and particularly, my dear, how much I am _your ever affectionate and
faithful friend and servant_, P. B,

LETTER LXXXIV

_From Miss Darnford, in answer to the preceding._

MY DEAR MRS. B.,

I have been several times (in company with Mr. Peters) to see Mrs.
Jewkes. The poor woman is very bad, and cannot live many days. We
comfort her all we can; but she often accuses herself of her past
behaviour to so excellent a lady; and with blessings upon blessings,
heaped upon you, and her master, and your charming little boy, is
continually declaring how much your goodness to her aggravates her
former faults to her own conscience.

She has a sister-in-law and her niece with her, and has settled all
her affairs, and thinks she is not long for this world.--Her distemper
is an inward decay, all at once as it were, from a constitution that
seemed like one of iron; and she is a mere skeleton: you would not
know her, I dare say.

I will see her every day; and she has given me up all her keys, and
accounts, to give to Mr. Longman, who is daily expected, and I hope
will be here soon; for her sister-in-law, she says herself, is a woman
of _this world_, as _she_ has been.

Mr. Peters calling upon me to go with him to visit her, I will break
off here.

Mrs. Jewkes is much as she was; but your faithful steward is come. I
am glad of it--and so is