told,
and I have most reason to know how they have taken it--but I shall be far
from avoiding the fault, and as surely shall incur the rebuke, if I say
any more upon this subject. I will therefore only add at present, That
your reasonings in their behalf show you to be all excellence; their
returns to you that they are all----Do, my dear, let me end with a little
bit of spiteful justice--but you won't, I know--so I have done, quite
done, however reluctantly: yet if you think of the word I would have
said, don't doubt the justice of it, and fill up the blank with it.

You intimate that were I actually married, and Mr. Hickman to desire it,
you would think of obliging me with a visit on the occasion; and that,
perhaps, when with me, it would be difficult for you to remove far from
me.

Lord, my dear, what a stress do you seem to lay upon Mr. Hickman's
desiring it!--To be sure he does and would of all things desire to have
you near us, and with us, if we might be so favoured--policy, as well as
veneration for you, would undoubtedly make the man, if not a fool, desire
this. But let me tell you, that if Mr. Hickman, after marriage, should
pretend to dispute with me my friendships, as I hope I am not quite a
fool, I should let him know how far his own quiet was concerned in such
an impertinence; especially if they were such friendships as were
contracted before I knew him.

I know I always differed from you on this subject: for you think more
highly of a husband's prerogative than most people do of the royal one.
These notions, my dear, from a person of your sense and judgment, are no
way advantageous to us; inasmuch as they justify the assuming sex in
their insolence; when hardly one out of ten of them, their opportunities
considered, deserves any prerogative at all. Look through all the
families we know; and we shall not find one-third of them have half the
sense of their wives. And yet these are to be vested with prerogatives!
And a woman of twice their sense has nothing to do but hear, tremble, and
obey--and for conscience-sake too, I warrant!

But Mr. Hickman and I may perhaps have a little discourse upon these
sorts of subjects, before I suffer him to talk of the day: and then I
shall let him know what he has to trust to; as he will me, if he be a
sincere man, what he pretends to expect from me. But let me tell you, my
dear, that it is more in your power than, perhaps, you think it, to
hasten the day so much pr