an's account!
My mother might see all that passes between us, did I not know, that
it would cramp your spirit, and restrain the freedom of your pen, as
it would also the freedom of mine: and were she not moreover so firmly
attached to the contrary side, that inferences, consequences, strained
deductions, censures, and constructions the most partial, would for
ever to be haled in to tease me, and would perpetually subject us to the
necessity of debating and canvassing.

Besides, I don't choose that she should know how much this artful wretch
has outwitted, as I may call it, a person so much his superior in all
the nobler qualities of the human mind.

The generosity of your heart, and the greatness of your soul, full well
I know; but do offer to dissuade me from this correspondence.

Mr. Hickman, immediately on the contention above, offered his service;
and I accepted of it, as you will see by my last. He thinks, though
he has all honour for my mother, that she is unkind to us both. He was
pleased to tell me (with an air, as I thought) that he not only approved
of our correspondence, but admired the steadiness of my friendship; and
having no opinion of your man, but a great one of me, thinks that my
advice or intelligence from time to time may be of use to you; and
on this presumption said, that it would be a thousand pities that you
should suffer for want of either.

Mr. Hickman pleased me in the main of his speech; and it is well the
general tenor of it was agreeable; otherwise I can tell him, I should
have reckoned with him for his word approve; for it is a style I have
not yet permitted him to talk to me in. And you see, my dear, what these
men are--no sooner do they find that you have favoured them with the
power of doing you an agreeable service, but they take upon them to
approve, forsooth, of your actions! By which is implied a right to
disapprove, if they think fit.

I have told my mother how much you wish to be reconciled to your
relations, and how independent you are upon Lovelace.

Mark the end of the latter assertion, she says. And as to
reconciliation, she knows that nothing will do, (and will have it, that
nothing ought to do,) but your returning back, without presuming to
condition with them. And this if you do, she says, will best show your
independence on Lovelace.

You see, my dear, what your duty is, in my mother's opinion.

I suppose your next, directed to Mr. Hickman, at his own house, will