ghtful child, and very full of play and
spirit. He is also a very great scholar: he can read his primer; and
I have brought down my Virgil. He makes most shrewd remarks about
the pictures. We are very intimate friends and playfellows. He
begins to be very ragged; and I hope I shall be pardoned if I equip
him with new clothes and frocks, or what Mrs. Evans and I shall
think for his service."

TO LADY STEELE.
[Undated.]

"You tell me you want a little flattery from me. I assure you I know
no one who deserves so much commendation as yourself, and to whom
saying the best things would be so little like flattery. The thing
speaks for itself, considering you as a very handsome woman that
loves retirement--one who does not want wit, and yet is extremely
sincere; and so I could go through all the vices which attend the
good qualities of other people, of which you are exempt. But,
indeed, though you have every perfection, you have an extravagant
fault, which almost frustrates the good in you to me; and that is,
that you do not love to dress, to appear, to shine out, even at my
request, and to make me proud of you, or rather to indulge the pride
I have that you are mine....

"Your most affectionate, obsequious husband,
"RICH. STEELE.

"A quarter of Molly's schooling is paid. The children are perfectly
well."

TO LADY STEELE.
"March 26, 1717.

"MY DEAREST PRUE,

"I have received yours, wherein you give me the sensible affliction
of telling me enow of the continual pain in your head.... When I lay
in your place, and on your pillow, I assure you I fell into tears
last night, to think that my charming little insolent might be then
awake and in pain; and took it to be a sin to go to sleep.

"For this tender passion towards you, I must be contented that your
_Prueship_ will condescend to call yourself my well-wisher."

At the time when the above later letters were written, Lady Steele
was in Wales, looking after her estate there. Steele, about this
time, was much occupied with a project for conveying fish alive, by
which, as he constantly assures his wife, he firmly believed he
should make his fortune. It did not succeed, however.

Lady Steele died in December of the succeeding year. She