proceeding, must I ever receive injuries and ill usage?

"I have not the usual pride of my sex; I can bear being told I am in the
wrong, but tell it me gently. Perhaps I have been indiscreet; I came
young into the hurry of the world; a great innocence and an undesigning
gaiety may possibly have been construed coquetry and a desire of being
followed, though never meant by me. I cannot answer for the [reflections]
that may be made on me: all who are malicious attack the careless and
defenceless: I own myself to be both. I not anything I can say more to
shew my perfect desire of pleasing you and making you easy, than to
proffer to be confined with you in what manner you please. Would any
woman but me renounce all the world for one? or would any man but you
be insensible of such a proof of sincerity?"


From an early age Lady Mary indulged her somewhat mordant humour, not
less in her letters than in her conversation, and as that quality must
have some subject upon which to exercise itself, she was generally on
the look-out for some tit-bit of scandal which she could relate in her
own inimitable manner.


"Next to the great ball, what makes the most noise is the marriage of an
old maid, who lives in this street, without a portion, to a man of
£7,000 _per annum_, and they say £40,000 in ready money," she wrote to
Mrs. Hewet about the beginning of 1709. "Her equipage and liveries
outshine anybody's in town. He has presented her with £3,000 in jewels;
and never was man more smitten with these charms that had lain invisible
for these forty years; but, with all his glory, never bride had fewer
enviers, the dear beast of a man is so filthy, frightful, odious, and