ployment for her but that
of talking to me when I am in the humour of saying nothing. Your dog is
come too, and I have received him with all the kindness that is due to
anything you send. I have defended him from the envy and malice of a
troop of greyhounds that used to be in favour with me; and he is so
sensible of my care over him, that he is pleased with nobody else, and
follows me as if we had been of long acquaintance. 'Tis well you are
gone past my recovery. My heart has failed me twenty times since you
went, and, had you been within my call, I had brought you back as often,
though I know thirty miles' distance and three hundred are the same
thing. You will be so kind, I am sure, as to write back by the coach and
tell me what the success of your journey so far has been. After that, I
expect no more (unless you stay for a wind) till you arrive at Dublin. I
pity your sister in earnest; a sea voyage is welcome to no lady; but you
are beaten to it, and 'twill become you, now you are a conductor, to
show your valour and keep your company in heart. When do you think of
coming back again? I am asking that before you are at your journey's
end. You will not take it ill that I desire it should be soon. In the
meantime, I'll practise all the rules you give me. Who told you I go to
bed late? In earnest, they do me wrong: I have been faulty in that point
heretofore, I confess, but 'tis a good while since I gave it over with
my reading o' nights; but in the daytime I cannot live without it, and
'tis all my diversion, and infinitely more pleasing to me than any
company but yours. And yet I am not given to it in any excess now; I
have been very much more. 'Tis Jane, I know, tells all these tales of
me. I shall be even with her some time or other, but for the present I
long for her with some impatience, that she may tell me all you have
told her.

Never trust me if I had not a suspicion from the first that 'twas that
ill-looked fellow B---- who made that story Mr. D---- told you. That
which gave me the first inclination to that belief was the circumstance
you told me of their seeing me at St. Gregory's. For I remembered to
have seen B---- there, and had occasion to look up into the gallery
where he sat, to answer a very civil salute given me from thence by Mr.
Freeman, and saw B---- in a great whisper with another that sat next
him, and pointing to me. If Mr. D---- had not been so nice in
discovering his name, you would quickly ha