hly obliged her; and she said, she would represent my cheerful
compliance as it deserved, let my brother and sister say what they
would. My mother in particular, she was sure, would rejoice at the
opportunity given her to obviate, as she doubted not would be the case,
some suspicions that were raised against me.

She then hinted, That there were methods taken to come at all Mr.
Lovelace's secrets, and even, from his careless communicativeness, at
some secret of mine; it being, she said, his custom, boastingly to prate
to his very servants of his intentions, in particular cases. She added,
that deep as he was thought to be, my brother was as deep as he, and
fairly too hard for him at his own weapons--as one day it would be
found.

I knew not, I said, the meaning of these dark hints. I thought the
cunning she hinted at, on both sides, called rather for contempt than
applause. I myself might have been put upon artifices which my heart
disdained to practise, had I given way to the resentment, which, I was
bold to say, was much more justifiable than the actions that occasioned
it: that it was evident to me, from what she had said, that their
present suspicions of me were partly owing to this supposed superior
cunning of my brother, and partly to the consciousness that the usage I
met with might naturally produce a reason for such suspicions: that it
was very unhappy for me to be made the butt of my brother's wit: that it
would have been more to his praise to have aimed at shewing a kind heart
than a cunning head: that, nevertheless, I wished he knew himself as
well as I imagined I knew him; and he would then have less conceit of
his abilities: which abilities would, in my opinion, be less thought of,
if his power to do ill offices were not much greater than they.

I was vexed. I could not help making this reflection. The dupe the
other, too probably, makes of him, through his own spy, deserved it. But
I so little approve of this low art in either, that were I but tolerably
used, the vileness of that man, that Joseph Leman, should be inquired
into.

She was sorry, she said, to find that I thought so disparagingly of my
brother. He was a young man both of learning and parts.

Learning enough, I said, to make him vain of it among us women: but not
of parts sufficient to make his learning valuable either to himself or
to any body else.

She wished, indeed, that he had more good nature: but she feared that
I had too great