as I tell him, may be in one respect deprecated, inasmuch as (so
excellent is his nature) he cannot help it if he would. O that it was
in my power to recompense him for it! But I am poor, as I have often
said, in every thing but will--and that is wholly his: and what a
happiness is it to me, a happiness I could not so early have hoped
for, that I can say so without reserve; since the dear object of it
requires nothing of me but what is consistent with my duty to
the Supreme Benefactor, the first mover and cause of all his own
happiness, of my happiness, and that of my dear, my ever dear parents.

_Your dutiful and happy daughter._





LETTER II

MY DEAREST DAUGHTER,

I need not repeat to you the sense your good mother and I have of our
happiness, and of our obligations to your honoured spouse; you both
were pleased witnesses of it every hour of the happy fortnight you
passed with us. Yet, my dear, we hardly know how to address ourselves
even to _you_, much less to the _'squire_, with the freedom he so
often invited us to take: for I don't know how it is, but though
you are our daughter, and so far from being lifted up by your high
condition, that we see no difference in your behaviour to us, your
poor parents, yet, viewing you as the lady of so fine a gentleman,
we cannot forbear having a kind of respect, and--I don't know what to