hey put on their fetters as inconsiderately as a woodcock runs into a
noose, and are carried by the weakest considerations imaginable to do a
thing of the greatest consequence of anything that concerns this world.
I was told by one (who pretends to know him very well) that nothing
tempted my cousin Osborne to marry his lady (so much) as that she was an
Earl's daughter; which methought was the prettiest fancy, and had the
least of sense in it, of any I had heard on, considering that it was no
addition to her person, that he had honour enough before for his
fortune, and how little it is esteemed in this age,--if it be anything
in a better,--which for my part I am not well satisfied in. Beside that,
in this particular it does not sound handsomely. My Lady Bridget Osborne
makes a worse name a great deal, methinks, than plain my Lady Osborne
would do.

I have been studying how Tom Cheeke might come by his intelligence, and
I verily believe he has it from my cousin Peters. She lives near them in
Essex, and in all likelihood, for want of other discourse to entertain
him withal, she has come out with all she knows. The last time I saw her
she asked me for you before she had spoke six words to me; and I, who of
all things do not love to make secrets of trifles, told her I had seen
you that day. She said no more, nor I neither; but perhaps it worked in
her little brain. The best on't is, the matter is not great, for though
I confess I had rather nobody knew it, yet 'tis that I shall never be
ashamed to own.

How kindly do I take these civilities of your father's; in earnest, you
cannot imagine how his letter pleased me. I used to respect him merely
as he was your father, but I begin now to owe it to himself; all that he
says is so kind and so obliging, so natural and so easy, that one may
see 'tis perfectly his disposition, and has nothing to disguise in it.
'Tis long since that I knew how well he writ, perhaps you have forgot
that you showed me a letter of his (to a French Marquis, I think, or
some such man of his acquaintance) when I first knew you; I remember it
very well, and that I thought it as handsome a letter as I had seen; but
I have not skill it seems, for I like yours too.

I can pardon all my cousin Franklin's little plots of discovery, if she
believed herself when she said she was confident our humours would agree
extremely well. In earnest, I think they do; for I mark that I am always
of your opinion, unless it b