ich seemed to attract all his attention,
on which he seemed to gaze with transport, and which indeed he hardly
took his eyes off the whole time.... The object that I mean was his
shoebuckle.'

One could imagine Miss Elizabeth Bennett writing in some such strain to
her friend Miss Charlotte Lucas after one of the evenings at Bingley's
hospitable mansion. And yet Miss Aikin is more impulsive, more romantic
than Elizabeth. 'Wherever you are, fly letter on the wings of the wind,'
she cries, 'and tell my dear Betsy what?--only that I love her dearly.'

Miss Nancy Aikin (she seems to have been Nancy in these letters, and to
have assumed the more dignified Laetitia upon her marriage) pours out
her lively heart, laughs, jokes, interests herself in the sentimental
affairs of the whole neighbourhood as well as in her own. Perhaps few
young ladies now-a-days would write to their _confidantes_ with the
announcement that for some time past a young sprig had been teasing them
to have him. This, however, is among Miss Nancy's confidences. She also
writes poems and _jeux d'esprit_, and receives poetry in return from
Betsy, who calls herself Camilla, and pays her friend many compliments,
for Miss Aikin in her reply quotes the well-known lines:--

Who for another's brow entwines the bays,
And where she well might rival stoops to Praise.

Miss Aikin by this time has attained to all the dignity of a full-blown
authoress, and is publishing a successful book of poems in conjunction
with her brother, which little book created much attention at the time.
One day the Muse thus apostrophises Betsy: 'Shall we ever see her
amongst us again?' says my sister (Mrs. Aikin). My brother (saucy
fellow) says, 'I want to see this girl, I think (stroking his chin as he
walks backwards and forwards in the room with great gravity). I think we
should admire one another.'

'When you come among us,' continues the warm-hearted friend, 'we shall
set the bells a-ringing, bid adieu to care and gravity, and sing "O be
joyful."' And finally, after some apologies for her remiss correspondence,
'I left my brother writing to you instead of Patty, poor soul. Well, it
is a clever thing too, to have a husband to write one's letters for one.
If I had one I would be a much better correspondent to you. I would
order him to write every week.'

And, indeed, Mrs. Barbauld was as good as her word, and did not forget
the resolutions made by Miss Aikin in 1773. In 1774 com