Mr. Esmond.

"Had we been better acquainted, I might have given you some advice
regarding your young gentleman's introduction to Europe, which you would
have taken or not, as people do in this world. At least you would have
sed afterwards, 'What she counselled me was right, and had Harry done as
Madam Beatrix wisht, it had been better for him.' My good sister, it was
not for you to know, or for me to whom you never wrote to tell you,
but your boy in coming to England and Castlewood found but ill friends
there; except one, an old aunt, of whom all kind of evil hath been
spoken and sed these fifty years past--and not without cawse too,
perhaps.

"Now, I must tell Harry's mother what will doubtless scarce astonish
her, that almost everybody who knows him loves him. He is prudent of
his tongue, generous of his money, as bold as a lyon, with an imperious
domineering way that sets well upon him; you know whether he is handsome
or not: my dear, I like him none the less for not being over witty or
wise, and never cared for your sett-the-Thames afire gentlemen, who are
so much more clever than their neighbours. Your father's great friend,
Mr. Addison, seemed to me but a supercillious prig, and his follower,
Sir Dick Steele, was not pleasant in his cupps, nor out of 'em. And
(revenons a luy) your Master Harry will certainly, pot burn the river
up with his wits. Of book-learning he is as ignorant as any lord in
England, and for this I hold him none the worse. If Heaven have not
given him a turn that way, 'tis of no use trying to bend him.

"Considering the place he is to hold in his own colony when he returns,
and the stock he comes from, let me tell you, that he hath not means
enough allowed him to support his station, and is likely to make the
more depence from the narrowness of his income--from sheer despair
breaking out of all bounds, and becoming extravagant, which is not his
turn. But he likes to live as well as the rest of his company, and,
between ourselves, has fell into some of the finist and most rakish in
England. He thinks 'tis for the honour of the family not to go back, and
many a time calls for ortolans and champaign when he would as leaf dine
with a stake and a mugg of beer. And in this kind of spirit I have no
doubt from what he hath told me in his talk (which is very naif, as the
French say), that his mamma hath encouraged him in his high opinion of
himself. We women like our belongings to have it, however lit