ing with my handkerchief her venerable cheeks, "that I always
thus endeavour to dry up all my good Mrs. Jervis's tears;" and then
I kissed her, thinking of you, my dear mother; and I was forced to
withdraw a little abruptly, lest I should be too much moved myself;
for had our departing company enquired into the occasion, they would
perhaps have thought it derogatory (though I should not) to my present
station, and too much retrospecting to my former.

I could not, in conversation between Mr. B. and myself, when I was
gratefully expatiating upon the amiable characters of our noble
guests, and of their behaviour and kindness to me, help observing,
that I had little expected, from some hints which formerly dropt from
Mr. B., to find my good Lord Davers so polite and so sensible a man.

"He is a very good-natured man," replied Mr. B. "I believe I might
once or twice drop some disrespectful words of him. But it was the
effect of passion at the time, and with a view to two or three points
of his conduct in public life; for which I took the liberty to find
fault with him, and received very unsatisfactory excuses. One of
these, I remember, was in a conference between a committee of each
house of parliament, in which he behaved in a way I could not wish
from a man so nearly allied to me by marriage; for all he could talk
of, was the dignity of their house, when the reason of the thing was
strong with the other; and it fell to my lot to answer what he said;
which I did with some asperity; and this occasioned a coolness between
us for some time.

"But no man makes a better figure in private life than Lord Davers;
especially now that my sister's good sense has got the better of her
passions, and she can behave with tolerable decency towards him. For
once, Pamela, it was not so: the violence of her spirit making him
appear in a light too little advantageous either to his quality or
merit. But now he improves upon me every time I see him.

"You know not, my dear, what a disgrace a haughty and passionate woman
brings upon her husband, and upon herself too, in the eyes of her own
sex, as well as ours. Nay, even those ladies, who would be as glad of
dominion as she, if they might be permitted to exercise it, despise
others who do, and the man _most_ who suffers it.

"And let me tell you," said the dear man, with an air that shewed
he was satisfied with his own conduct in this particular, "that you
cannot imagine how much a woman ow