will be obliged to quit for a better preferment:
and, when there, he is to inquire privately after your way of life, and
of your health.

He is a very officious young man; and, but that your uncle Harlowe (who
has chosen him for this errand) regards him as an oracle, your mother had
rather any body else had been sent.

He is one of those puzzling, over-doing gentlemen, who think they see
farther into matters than any body else, and are fond of discovered
mysteries where there are none, in order to be thought shrewd men.

I can't say I like him, either in the pulpit or out of it: I, who had a
father one of the soundest divines and finest scholars in the kingdom;
who never made an ostentation of what he knew; but loved and venerated he
gospel he taught, preferring it to all other learning: to be obliged to
hear a young man depart from his text as soon as he has named it, (so
contrary, too, to the example set him by his learned and worthy
principal,* when his health permits him to preach;) and throwing about,
to a christian and country audience, scraps of Latin and Greek from the
Pagan Classics; and not always brought in with great propriety neither,
(if I am to judge by the only way given me to judge of them, by the
English he puts them into;) is an indication of something wrong, either
in his head, or his heart, or both; for, otherwise, his education at the
university must have taught him better. You know, my dear Miss Clary,
the honour I have for the cloth: it is owing to that, that I say what I
do.

* Dr. Lewen.

I know not the day he is to set out; and, as his inquiries are to be
private, be pleased to take no notice of this intelligence. I have no
doubt that your life and conversation are such as may defy the scrutinies
of the most officious inquirer.

I am just now told that you have written a second letter to your sister:
but am afraid they will wait for Mr. Brand's report, before farther
favour will be obtained from them; for they will not yet believe you are
so ill as I fear you are.

But you would soon find that you have an indulgent mother, were she at
liberty to act according to her own inclination. And this gives me great
hopes that all will end well at last: for I verily think you are in the
right way to a reconciliation. God give a blessing to it, and restore
your health, and you to all your friends, prays

Your ever affectionate,
JUDITH NORTON.

Your mother has privately sent me five