I could never find my face in a
condition to admit on't, and when I was not satisfied with it myself, I
had no reason to hope that anybody else should. But I am afraid, as you
say, that time will not mend it, and therefore you shall have it as it
is as soon as Mr. Cooper will vouchsafe to take the pains to draw it for
you.

I am in great trouble to think how I shall write out of Suffolk to you,
or receive yours. However, do not fail to write, though they lie awhile.
I shall have them at last, and they will not be the less welcome; and,
though you should miss of some of mine, let it not trouble you; but if
it be by my fault, I'll give you leave to demand satisfaction for it
when you come. Jane kisses your hands, and says she will be ready in all
places to do you service; but I'll prevent her, now you have put me into
a jealous humour. I'll keep her in chains before she shall quit scores
with me. Do not believe, sir, I beseech you, that the young heirs are
for you; content yourself with your old mistress. You are not so
handsome as Will Spencer, nor I have not so much courage nor wealth as
his mistress, nor she has not so much as her aunt says by all the money.
I shall not have called her his mistress now they have been married
almost this fortnight.

I'll write again before I leave the town, and should have writ more now,
but company is come in. Adieu, my dearest.

_Letter 61._--Lady Talmash was the eldest daughter of Mr. Murray,
Charles I.'s page and whipping boy. She married Sir Lionel Talmash of
Suffolk, a gentleman of noble family. After her father's death, she took
the title of Countess of Dysart, although there was some dispute about
the right of her father to any title. Bishop Burnet says: "She was a
woman of great beauty, but of far greater parts. She had a wonderful
quickness of apprehension, and an amazing vivacity in conversation. She
had studied not only divinity and history, but mathematics and
philosophy. She was violent in everything she set about,--a violent
friend, but a much more violent enemy. She had a restless ambition,
lived at a vast expense, and was ravenously covetous; and would have
stuck at nothing by which she might compass her ends. She had been early
in a correspondence with Lord Lauderdale, that had given occasion to
censure. When he was a prisoner after Worcester fight, she made him
believe he was in great danger of his life, and that she saved it by her
intrigues with Cromwell, whic