SUNDAY NIGHT, OR RATHER MINDAY MORNING.

I must answer you, though against my own resolution. Every body loves
you; and you know they do. The very ground you walk upon is dear to most
of us. But how can we resolve to see you? There is no standing against
your looks and language. It is our loves makes us decline to see you.
How can we, when you are resolved not to do what we are resolved you
shall do? I never, for my part, loved any creature, as I loved you from
your infancy till now. And indeed, as I have often said, never was there
a young creature so deserving of our love. But what is come to you now!
Alas! alas! my dear kinswoman, how you fail in the trial!

I have read the letters you enclosed. At a proper time, I may shew them
to my brother and sister: but they will receive nothing from you at
present.

For my part, I could not read your letter to me, without being unmanned.
How can you be so unmoved yourself, yet so able to move every body
else? How could you send such a letter to Mr. Solmes? Fie upon you! How
strangely are you altered!

Then to treat your brother and sister as you did, that they don't care
to write to you, or to see you! Don't you know where it is written, That
soft answers turn away wrath? But if you will trust to you sharp-pointed
wit, you may wound. Yet a club will beat down a sword: And how can you
expect that they who are hurt by you will not hurt you again? Was this
the way you used to take to make us all adore you as we did?--No, it
was your gentleness of heart and manners, that made every body, even
strangers, at first sight, treat you as a lady, and call you a lady,
though not born one, while your elder sister had no such distinctions
paid her. If you were envied, why should you sharpen envy, and file up
its teeth to an edge?--You see I write like an impartial man, and as one
that loves you still.

But since you have displayed your talents, and spared nobody, and moved
every body, without being moved, you have but made us stand the closer
and firmer together. This is what I likened to an embattled phalanx,
once before. Your aunt Hervey forbids your writing for the same reason
that I must not countenance it. We are all afraid to see you, because we
know we shall be made as so many fools. Nay, your mother is so afraid
of you, that once or twice, when she thought you were coming to force
yourself into her presence, she shut the door, and locked herself in,
because she knew she must n