mple, though I know you do not need my counsel, yet I
cannot but tell you that I think 'twere very well that you took some
care to make my Lady B. your friend, and oblige her by your civilities
to believe that you were sensible of the favour was offered you, though
you had not the grace to make good use on't. In very good earnest now,
she is a woman (by all that I have heard of her) that one would not
lose; besides that, 'twill become you to make some satisfaction for
downright refusing a young lady--'twas unmercifully done.

Would to God you would leave that trick of making excuses! Can you think
it necessary to me, or believe that your letters can be so long as to
make them unpleasing to me? Are mine so to you? If they are not, yours
never will be so to me. You see I say anything to you, out of a belief
that, though my letters were more impertinent than they are, you would
not be without them nor wish them shorter. Why should you be less kind?
If your fellow-servant has been with you, she has told you I part with
her but for her advantage. That I shall always be willing to do; but
whensoever she shall think fit to serve again, and is not provided of a
better mistress, she knows where to find me.

I have sent you the rest of _Cleopatre_, pray keep them all in your
hands, and the next week I will send you a letter and directions where
you shall deliver that and the books for my lady. Is it possible that
she can be indifferent to anybody? Take heed of telling me such stories;
if all those excellences she is rich in cannot keep warm a passion
without the sunshine of her eyes, what are poor people to expect; and
were it not a strange vanity in me to believe yours can be long-lived?
It would be very pardonable in you to change, but, sure, in him 'tis a
mark of so great inconstancy as shows him of an humour that nothing can
fix. When you go into the Exchange, pray call at the great shop above,
"The Flower Pott." I spoke to Heams, the man of the shop, when I was in
town, for a quart of orange-flower water; he had none that was good
then, but promised to get me some. Pray put him in mind of it, and let
him show it you before he sends it me, for I will not altogether trust
to his honesty; you see I make no scruple of giving you little idle
commissions, 'tis a freedom you allow me, and that I should be glad you
would take. The Frenchman that set my seals lives between Salisbury
House and the Exchange, at a house that was not fin