u could oblige your
friends against your own inclination. Our conference upon this subject
was introduced by the conversation we had had with Sir Harry Downeton;
and my mother thinks it of so much importance, that she enjoins me to
give you the particulars of it. I the rather comply, as I was unable in
my last to tell what to advise you to; and as you will in this recital
have my mother's opinion at least, and, perhaps, in hers what the
world's would be, were it only to know what she knows, and not so much
as I know.

My mother argues upon this case in a most discouraging manner for all
such of our sex as look forward for happiness in marriage with the man
of their choice.

Only, that I know, she has a side-view of her daughter; who, at the
same time that she now prefers no one to another, values not the man her
mother most regards, of one farthing; or I should lay it more to heart.

What is there in it, says she, that all this bustle is about? Is it such
a mighty matter for a young woman to give up her inclinations to oblige
her friends?

Very well, my mamma, thought I! Now, may you ask this--at FORTY, you
may. But what would you have said at EIGHTEEN, is the question?

Either, said she, the lady must be thought to have very violent
inclinations [And what nice young creature would have that supposed?]
which she could not give up; or a very stubborn will, which she would
not; or, thirdly, have parents she was indifferent about obliging.

You know my mother now-and-then argues very notably; always very warmly
at least. I happen often to differ from her; and we both think so well
of our own arguments, that we very seldom are so happy as to convince
one another. A pretty common case, I believe, in all vehement debatings.
She says, I am too witty; Angelice, too pert: I, That she is too wise;
that is to say, being likewise put into English, not so young as she has
been: in short, is grown so much into mother, that she has forgotten
she ever was a daughter. So, generally, we call another cause by
consent--yet fall into the old one half a dozen times over, without
consent--quitting and resuming, with half-angry faces, forced into a
smile, that there might be some room to piece together again: but go
a-bed, if bedtime, a little sullen nevertheless: or, if we speak, her
silence is broken with an Ah! Nancy! You are so lively! so quick! I wish
you were less like your papa, child!

I pay it off with thinking, that my mother