LETTER 41.


To Miss Rivers, Clarges Street.

Nov. 10.

The savages assure us, my dear, on the information of the beavers,
that we shall have a very mild winter: it seems, these creatures have
laid in a less winter stock than usual. I take it very ill, Lucy, that
the beavers have better intelligence than we have.

We are got into a pretty composed easy way; Sir George writes very
agreable, sensible, sentimental, gossiping letters, once a fortnight,
which Emily answers in due course, with all the regularity of a
counting-house correspondence; he talks of coming down after Christmas:
we expect him without impatience; and in the mean time amuse ourselves
as well as we can, and soften the pain of absence by the attention of
a man that I fancy we like quite as well.

With submission to the beavers, the weather is very cold, and we
have had a great deal of snow already; but they tell me 'tis nothing to
what we shall have: they are taking precautions which make me shudder
beforehand, pasting up the windows, and not leaving an avenue where
cold can enter.

I like the winter carriages immensely; the open carriole is a kind