etition, in this very tender point.

And this obliges me to own, that I have a little spark--not a little
one, perhaps of _secret pride_ and _vanity_, that will arise, now and
then, on the honours done me; but which I keep under as much as I
can; and to this pride, let me tell your ladyship, I know no one
contributes, or can contribute, more largely than yourself.

So you see, my dear lady, what a naughty heart I have, and how far
I am from being a faultless creature--I hope I shall be better and
better, however, as I live longer, and have more grace, and more
wit: for here to recapitulate my faults, is in the first place,
_vindictiveness_, I will not call it downright revenge--And how much
room do all these leave for amendment, and greater perfection?

Had your ladyship, and the countess, favoured us longer in your kind
visit, I must have so improved, by your charming conversations, and
by that natural ease and dignity which accompany everything your
ladyships do and say, as to have got over such of these foibles as
are not rooted in nature: till in time I had been able to do more than
emulate those perfections, which at present, I can only at an awful
distance revere; as becomes, _my dear ladies, your most humble
admirer, and obliged servant_,

P.B.

* * * * *

LETTER LII

_From Miss Darnford to her Father and Mother_.

MY EVER-HONOURED PAPA AND MAMMA,

I arrived safely in London on Thursday, after a tolerable journey,
considering Deb and I made six in the coach (two having been taken up
on the way, after you left me), and none of the six highly agreeable.
Mr. B. and his lady, who looks very stately upon us (from the
circumstance of _person_, rather than of _mind_, however), were so
good as to meet me at St. Alban's, in their coach and six. They have a
fine house here, richly furnished in every part, and have allotted me
the best apartment in it.

We are happy beyond expression. Mr. B. is a charming husband; so easy,
so pleased with, and so tender of his lady: and she so much all that
we saw her in the country, as to humility and affability, and improved
in every thing else which we hardly thought possible she could
be--that I never knew so happy a matrimony.--All that _prerogative
sauciness_, which we apprehended would so eminently display itself in
his behaviour to his wife, had she been ever so distinguished by birth
and fortune, is vanished. I did not think it wa