begging you will either keep it safe till better times, or return it to Mr. Wilson himself, who, I suppose, will make it his business to see you at the usual place. If he should be low-spirited at my sending back his picture, you may tell him I have no occasion for a picture, while the original continues engraved on my— But no; I would not have you tell him that neither; because there must be an end of our correspondence. I wish he may forget me, for the sake of his own peace; and yet if he should, he must be a barbarous— But ’tis impossible; poor Wilson cannot be false and inconstant: I beseech him not to write to me, nor attempt to see me for some time; for, considering the resentment and passionate temper of my brother Jery, such an attempt might be attended with consequences which would make us all miserable for life. Let us trust to time and the chapter of accidents; or rather to that Providence which will not fail, sooner or later, to reward those that walk in the paths of honour and virtue. I would offer my love to the young ladies; but it is not fit that any of them should know you have received this letter. If we go to Bath, I shall send you my simple remarks upon that famous center of polite amusement, and every other place we may chance to visit; and I flatter myself that my dear Miss Willis will be punctual in answering the letters of her affectionate,

LYDIA MELFORD.

To Dr. Lewis.

Clifton, April 17.

DEAR LEWIS,

I HAVE followed your directions with some success, and might have been upon my legs by this time, had the weather permitted me to use my saddle-horse. I rode out upon the Downs last Tuesday, in the forenoon, when the sky, as far as the visible horizon, was without a cloud; but before I had gone a full mile, I was overtaken instantaneously by a storm of rain that wet me to the skin in three minutes; whence it came the devil knows; but it has laid me up (I suppose) for one fortnight. It makes me sick to hear people talk of the fine air upon Clifton-Downs: how can the air be either agreeable or salutary, where the daemon of vapours descends in a perpetual drizzle? My confinement is the more intolerable, as I am surrounded with domestic vexations. My niece has had a dangerous fit of illness, occasioned by that cursed incident at Gloucester, which I mentioned in my last. She is a poor good-natured simpleton, as soft as butter, and as easily melted: not that she’s a fool; the girl’s parts are not despicable, and her education has not been neglected; that is to say, she can write and spell, and speak French, and play upon the harpsichord; then she dances finely, has a good figure, and is very well inclined; but, she’s deficient in spirit, and so susceptible—and so tender forsooth! truly, she has got a languishing eye, and reads romances. Then there’s her brother, ’squire Jery, a pert jackanapes, full of college petulance and self- conceit; proud as a German count, and as hot and hasty as a Welch mountaineer. As for that fantastical animal, my sister Tabby, you are no stranger to her qualifications. I vow to God, she is sometimes so intolerable, that I almost think she’s the devil incarnate come to torment me for my sins; and yet I am conscious of no sins that ought to entail such family-plagues upon me. Why the devil should not I shake off these torments at once? I an’t married to Tabby, thank Heaven! nor did I beget the other two: let them choose another guardian: for my part, I an’t in a condition to take care of myself; much less to superintend the conduct of giddy-headed boys and girls. You earnestly desire to know the particulars of our adventure at Gloucester, which are briefly these, and I hope they will go no further: Liddy had been so long cooped up in a boarding-school, which, next to a nunnery, is the worst kind of seminary that ever was contrived for young women, that she became as inflammable as touch-wood; and going to a play in holiday-time—’sdeath, I’m ashamed to tell you!—she fell in love with one of the actors, a handsome young fellow that goes by the name of Wilson. The rascal soon perceived the impression he had made, and managed matters so as to see her at a house where she went to drink tea with her governess. This was the beginning of a correspondence, which they kept up by means of a jade of a milliner, who made and dressed caps for the girls at the boarding-school. When we arrived at Gloucester, Liddy came to stay at lodgings with her aunt, and Wilson bribed the maid to deliver a letter into her own hands; but it seems Jery had already acquired so much credit with the maid (by what means he best knows), that she carried the letter to