So I went up, and recollecting every thing, _sacrificed to my sex_,
as Mr. B. calls it, when he talks of a wife's reluctance to yield a
favourite point: for I shed many tears, because my heart was set upon
it.

And so, my dear parents, twenty charming ideas and pleasures I had
formed to myself, are vanished from me, and my measures are quite
broken. But after my heart was relieved by my eye, I was lighter and
easier. And the result is, we have heard of a good sort of woman,
that is to be my poor _baby's mother_, when it comes; so your
kindly-offered enquiries are needless, I believe.

'Tis well for our sex in general, that there are not many husbands who
distinguish thus nicely. For, I doubt, there are but very few so well
entitled to their ladies' observances as Mr. B. is to mine, and who
would act so generously and so tenderly by a wife as he does, in every
material instance on which the happiness of life depends.

But we are quite reconciled; although as I said, upon his own terms:
and so I can still style myself, _my dear honoured parents, your
happy, as well as your dutiful daughter_, P.B.





LETTER XLVIII

_From Lady Davers to Mrs. B._