n not contemptible.
She sits enthroned among us, while we make but common figures at her
footstool: she calls us sisters, friends, and twenty pretty names. Let
us acquaint her, that we see into her heart; and why Lord D---- and
others are so indifferent with her. If she is ingenuous, let us spare
her; if not, leave me to punish her--Yet we will keep up her punctilio as
to our brother; we will leave him to make his own discoveries. She may
confide in his politeness; and the result will be happier for her;
because she will then be under no restraint to us, and her native freedom
of heart may again take its course.

Agreed, agreed, said Lady L----. And arm-in-arm, we entered your
dressing-room, dismissed the maid, and began the attack--And, O Harriet!
how you hesitated, paraded, fooled on with us, before you came to
confession! Indeed you deserved not the mercy we shewed you--So, child,
you had better to have let this part of your story sleep in peace.

You bid me not tell Emily, that your cousin is in love with her: but I
think I will. Girls begin very early to look out for admirers. It is
better, in order to stay her stomach, to find out one for her, than that
she should find out one for herself; especially when the man is among
ourselves, as I may say, and both are in our own management, and at
distance from each other. Emily is a good girl; but she has
susceptibilities already: and though I would not encourage her, as yet,
to look out of herself for happiness; yet I would give her consequence
with herself, and at the same time let her see, that there could be no
mention made of any thing that related to her, but what she should be
acquainted with. Dear girl! I love her as well as you; and I pity her
too: for she, as well as somebody else, will have difficulties to contend
with, which she will not know easily how to get over; though she can, in
a flame so young, generously prefer the interest of a more excellent
woman to her own.--There, Harriet, is a grave paragraph: you'll like me
for it.

You are a very reflecting girl, in mentioning to me, so particularly,
your behaviour to your Grevilles, Fenwicks, and Ormes. What is that but
saying, See, Charlotte! I am a much more complacent creature to the
men, no one of which I intend to have, than you are to your husband!

What a pious woman, indeed, must be your grandmamma, that she could
suspend her joy, her long-absent darling at her feet, till she had first
thanked God