These sentiments were more strongly impressed upon my mind than the words
I made use of were capable of conveying an idea of. This will appear
more fully in my following letters.

As soon as we were returned from walking, the Queen my mother retired
with me into her closet, and addressed the following words to me: "Your
brother has been relating the conversation you have had together; he
considers you no longer as a child, neither shall I. It will be a great
comfort to me to converse with you as I would with your brother. For the
future you will freely speak your mind, and have no apprehensions of
taking too great a liberty, for it is what I wish." These words gave me
a pleasure then which I am now unable to express. I felt a satisfaction
and a joy which nothing before had ever caused me to feel. I now
considered the pastimes of my childhood as vain amusements. I shunned
the society of my former companions of the same age. I disliked dancing
and hunting, which I thought beneath my attention. I strictly complied
with her agreeable injunction, and never missed being with her at her
rising in the morning and going to rest at night. She did me the honour,
sometimes, to hold me in conversation for two and three hours at a time.
God was so gracious with me that I gave her great satisfaction; and she
thought she could not sufficiently praise me to those ladies who were
about her. I spoke of my brother's affairs to her, and he was constantly
apprised by me of her sentiments and opinion; so that he had every reason
to suppose I was firmly attached to his interest.




LETTER III.