I could have answered; 'bating the difference which pride makes.

Then they all chorus'd upon me--Such a character as Miss Harlowe's!
cried one----A lady of so much generosity and good sense! Another--How
charmingly she writes! the two maiden monkeys, looking at her find
handwriting: her perfections my crimes. What can you expect will be the
end of these things! cried Lady Sarah--d----d, d----d doings! vociferated
the Peer, shaking his loose-fleshe'd wabbling chaps, which hung on his
shoulders like an old cow's dewlap.

For my part, I hardly knew whether to sing or say what I had to reply to
these all-at-once attacks upon me!-Fair and softly, Ladies--one at a
time, I beseech you. I am not to be hunted down without being heard, I
hope. Pray let me see these letters. I beg you will let me see them.

There they are:--that's the first--read it out, if you can.

I opened a letter from my charmer, dated Thursday, June 29, our
wedding-day, that was to be, and written to Lady Betty Lawrance. By the
contents, to my great joy, I find the dear creature is alive and well,
and in charming spirits. But the direction where to send an answer to
was so scratched out that I could not read it; which afflicted me much.

She puts three questions in it to Lady Betty.

1st. About a letter of her's, dated June 7, congratulating me on my
nuptials, and which I was so good as to save Lady Betty the trouble of
writing----A very civil thing of me, I think!

Again--'Whether she and one of her nieces Montague were to go to town, on
an old chancery suit?'--And, 'Whether they actually did go to town
accordingly, and to Hampstead afterwards?' and, 'Whether they brought to
town from thence the young creature whom they visited?' was the subject
of the second and third questions.

A little inquisitive, dear rogue! and what did she expect to be the
better for these questions?----But curiosity, d----d curiosity, is the
itch of the sex--yet when didst thou know it turned to their benefit?--
For they seldom inquire, but what they fear--and the proverb, as my Lord
has it, says, It comes with a fear. That is, I suppose, what they fear
generally happens, because there is generally occasion for the fear.

Curiosity indeed she avows to be her only motive for these
interrogatories: for, though she says her Ladyship may suppose the
questions are not asked for good to me, yet the answer can do me no harm,
nor her good, only to give her to understand,