Dictionary's french and English, we shall be
better friends; nor shall I grudge a little pains
and application, if that will make me useful to
any of my poor Neighbors, we have Some in this
Neighbourhood, who have a little Land a few Slaves
and Cattle to give their children, that never
think of making a will 'till they come upon a sick
bed, and find it too Expensive to send to town for
a Lawyer.

If you will not laugh too immoderately at mee I'll
Trust you with a Secrett. I have made two wills
already! I know I have done no harm, for I con'd
my lesson very perfect, and know how to convey by
will, Estates, Real and Personal, and never
forgett in its proper place, him and his heirs
forever, no that 'tis to be signed by three
witnesses, in presence of one another; bu^t the
most comfortable rememberance of all is that
Doct^r Wood says, the Law makes great allowance
for Last Wills and Testaments, presuming the
Testator could not have Council learned in the
Law. But after all what can I do if a poor
Creature lies a-dying, and their family takes it
into their head that I can serve them. I can't
refuse; but when they are well, and able to employ
a Lawyer, I always shall.

A widow hereabouts with a pretty little fortune,
teazed me intolerable to draw her a marriage
settlement, but it was out of my depth and I
absolutely refused it, so she got an abler hand to
do it, indeed she could afford it, but I could not
gett off from being one of the Trustees to her
Settlement and an old gentleman the other.

I shall begin to think myself an old woman before
I am well a young one, having these weighty
affairs upon my hands.

From this solemn epistle it is amusing to turn for a moment to Colonel
Lucas's matrimonial plan for his daughter. In those days girls were
married at a very early age, and it is small wonder that Colonel Lucas
spent much thought on the problem of finding a suitable lover for his
favourite daughter, before he broached the subject to her, for marriages
were generally arranged by a girl's parents in those days. And that
Eliza might have some choice in the ma