earance and manner
announce vivacity and the most unaffected gaiety. Miss Ponsonby has
a fine countenance, but pale and melancholy. One seems to have been
born in this solitude, so perfectly is she at her ease in it; for her
easy carriage shews that she has not retained the slightest
recollection of the world and its vain pleasures. The other, silent
and pensive, has too much candour and innocence for you to suppose
that repentance has conducted her into solitude, but you would
suppose that she still cherishes some painful regrets. Both have the
most engaging politeness, and highly-cultivated minds. An excellent
library, composed of the best English, French, and Italian authors,
affords them an inexhaustible source of diversified amusement and
solid occupation; for reading is not truly profitable except when a
person has time to read again.

"The interior of the house is delightful on account of the just
proportion and distribution of the apartments, the elegance of the
ornaments and furniture, and the admirable view which you enjoy from
all the windows; the drawing-room is adorned with charming
landscapes, drawn and coloured from nature, by Miss Ponsonby. Lady
Eleanor is a great proficient in music; and their solitary habitation
is filled with embroidery by them both, of wonderful execution. Miss
Ponsonby, who writes the finest hand I ever saw, has copied a number
of select pieces in verse and prose, which she has ornamented with
vignettes and arabesques, in the best taste, and which form a most
valuable collection. Thus the arts are cultivated there with equal
modesty and success, and their productions are admired with a feeling
that is not experienced elsewhere; the spectator observes with
delight that so much merit is secure in this peaceful retreat from
the shafts of satire and envy, and that talents unaccompanied with
ostentation and pride, have there never coveted any suffrages but
those of friendship.

"This evening was a scene of enchantment for me; not one painful
reflection disturbed its felicity. I retired to rest, but my
imagination was so fully occupied with what I had seen and heard,
that my thoughts kept me for a long time awake. At length, I was
just falling asleep, when I was roused by the most melodious sounds.
I listened in great astonishment; it w