are intended to Vindicate myself one day in your eyes; and I
think I should not care a farthing for the embroidered silk gown,
more than for an old woman's apron, unless I had hopes that thou
shouldst be walking the boards to admire, and perhaps to envy me.

That this may be the case, I prithee--beware! See not a
Dulcinea, in every slipshod girl, who, with blue eyes, fair hair,
a tattered plaid, and a willow-wand in her grip, drives out the
village cows to the loaning. Do not think you will meet a
gallant Valentine in every English rider, or an Orson in every
Highland drover. View things as they are, and not as they may be
magnified through thy teeming fancy. I have seen thee look at an
old gravel pit, till thou madest out capes, and bays, and inlets,
crags and precipices, and the whole stupendous scenery of the
Isle of Feroe, in what was, to all ordinary eyes, a mere horse-
pond. Besides, did I not once find thee gazing with respect at a
lizard, in the attitude of one who looks upon a crocodile? Now
this is, doubtless, so far a harmless exercise of your
imagination; for the puddle cannot drown you, nor the Lilliputian
alligator eat you up. But it is different in society, where you
cannot mistake the character of those you converse with, or
suffer your fancy to exaggerate their qualities, good or bad,
without exposing yourself not only to ridicule, but to great and
serious inconveniences. Keep guard, therefore, on your
imagination, my dear Darsie; and let your old friend assure you,
it is the point of your character most pregnant with peril to its
good and generous owner. Adieu! let not the franks of the
worthy peer remain unemployed; above all, SIS MEMOR MEI. A. F.