nd with. Alas! my dear, you should have borrowed
some of mine a little sooner;--that is to say, before you had given the
management of your estate into the hands of those who think they have a
prior claim to it. What though a father's!--Has not the father two elder
children?--And do they not both bear more of his stamp and image than
you do?--Pray, my dear, call me not to account for this free question;
lest your application of my meaning, on examination, prove to be as
severe as that.

Now I have launched out a little, indulge me one word more in the same
strain--I will be decent, I promise you. I think you might have know,
that Avarice and Envy are two passions that are not to be satisfied, the
one by giving, the other by the envied person's continuing to deserve
and excel.--Fuel, fuel both, all the world over, to flames insatiate and
devouring.

But since you ask for my opinion, you must tell me all you know or
surmise of their inducements. And if you will not forbid me to make
extracts from your letters for the entertainment of my aunt and cousin
in the little island, who long to hear more of your affairs, it will be
very obliging.

But you are so tender of some people who have no tenderness for any body
but themselves, that I must conjure you to speak out. Remember, that
a friendship like ours admits of no reserves. You may trust my
impartiality. It would be an affront to your own judgment, if you did
not: For do you not ask my advice? And have you not taught me that
friendship should never give a bias against justice?--Justify them,
therefore, if you can. Let us see if there be any sense, whether
sufficient reason or not in their choice. At present I cannot (and yet
I know a good deal of your family) have any conception how all of them,
your mother and your aunt Hervey in particular, can join with the rest
against judgments given. As to some of the others, I cannot wonder at
any thing they do, or attempt to do, where self is concerned.

You ask, Why may not your brother be first engaged in wedlock? I'll tell
you why: His temper and his arrogance are too well known to induce women
he would aspire to, to receive his addresses, notwithstanding his great
independent acquisitions, and still greater prospects. Let me tell you,
my dear, those acquisitions have given him more pride than reputation.
To me he is the most intolerable creature that I ever conversed with.
The treatment you blame, he merited from one whom h