superscribe meself.

ABIMELECH HENLEY




LETTER VIII

_Anna Wenbourne St. Ives to Louisa Clifton_

_London, Grosvenor Street_

Frank Henley's accident has necessarily delayed our journey for a
fortnight; nay, it was within an ace of being delayed for ever, and
[Would you think it possible?] by the artful remonstrances of this
Abimelech Henley. I have been obliged to exert all my influence, and
all my rhetoric, upon Sir Arthur, or it would have been entirely given
up. Rapacious and narrow in his own plans, this wretch, this honest
Aby, as my father calls him, would not willingly suffer a guinea to be
spent, except in improvements: that is, not a guinea which should not
pass through his hands. A letter from him to Sir Arthur has been the
cause of this contest.

I hope however, my dear, that Sir Arthur's affairs are not in so bad a
train as your fears [expressed in your letter of the third] cause you
to imagine. Should they be so, what will become of my brother? A mere
man of fashion! Active in the whole etiquette of visiting, dressing,
driving, riding, fencing, dancing, gaming, writing cards of compliment,
and all the frivolous follies of what, by this class of people, is