whose good opinion I am in pain. I have always took so little care to
please the generality of the world, that I am never mortified or
delighted by its reports which is a piece of stoicism born with me; but
I cannot be one minute easy while you think ill of

"Your faithful--"


"This letter is a good deal grave, and, like other grave things, dull;
but I won't ask pardon for what I can't help."


Was the sentiment expressed in the following letter, written about the
same time as that printed above, intended for Anne or her brother, or
both?


"When I said it cost nothing to write tenderly, I believe I spoke of
another sex; I am sure not of myself: 'tis not in my power (I would to
God it was!) to hide a kindness where I have one, or dissemble it where
I have none. I cannot help answering your letter this minute, and
telling you I infinitely love you, though, it may be, you'll call the
one impertinence, and the other dissimulation; but you may think what
you please of me, I must eternally think the same things of you."


Lady Mary was occasionally wearisome owing to the reiteration of the
assurance that she believed her letters to be dull, the more so as she
certainly was conscious of the skill with which she composed them. "What
do you mean by complaining I never write to you in the quiet situation