superior to all our sex in the command of yourself;
and since indeed you deserve to be thought so; I will spare you. You
are, however, at times, more than half inclined to speak out. That
you do not, is only owing to a little bashful struggle between you and
yourself, as I may say. When that is quite got over, I know you will
favour me undisguisedly with the result.

I cannot forgive your taking upon me (at so extravagant a rate too) to
pay my mother's servants. Indeed I am, and I will be, angry with you for
it. A year's wages at once well nigh! only as, unknown to my mother, I
make it better for the servants according to their merits--how it made
the man stare!--And it may be his ruin too, as far as I know. If he
should buy a ring, and marry a sorry body in the neighbourhood with the
money, one would be loth, a twelvemonth hence, that the poor old fellow
should think he had reason to wish the bounty never conferred.

I MUST give you your way in these things, you say.--And I know there is
no contradicting you: for you were ever putting too great a value upon
little offices done for you, and too little upon the great ones you do
for others. The satisfaction you have in doing so, I grant it, repays
you. But why should you, by the nobleness of your mind, throw reproaches
upon the rest of the world? particularly, upon your own family--and upon
ours too?

If, as I have heard you say, it is a good rule to give WORDS the
hearing, but to form our judgment of men and things by DEEDS ONLY;
what shall we think of one, who seeks to find palliatives in words, for
narrowness of heart in the very persons her deeds so silently, yet so
forcibly, reflect upon? Why blush you not, my dear friend, to be thus
singular?--When you meet with another person whose mind is like your
own, then display your excellencies as you please: but till then,
for pity's sake, let your heart and your spirit suffer a little
contradiction.

I intended to write but a few lines; chiefly to let you know your
parcels are come safe. And accordingly I began in a large hand; and I
am already come to the end of my second sheet. But I could write a quire
without hesitation upon a subject so copious and so beloved as is your
praise. Not for this single instance of your generosity; since I am
really angry with you for it; but for the benevolence exemplified in
the whole tenor of your life and action; of which this is but a common
instance. Heaven direct you, in your o