* See Letter XXXVIII.  Vol.  III.

Mowbray and Tourville, the two greatest blunderers of the four, I allow to be acquainted with the widow and nieces, from the knowledge they had of the colonel.  They will not forbear familiarities of speech to the mother, as of longer acquaintance than a day.  So I have suited their parts to their capacities.

They may praise the widow and the colonel for people of great honour—­but not too grossly; nor to labour the point so as to render themselves suspected.

The mother will lead ye into her own and the colonel’s praises! and Tourville and Mowbray may be both her vouchers—­I, and you, and Belton, must be only hearsay confirmers.

As poverty is generally suspectible, the widow must be got handsomely aforehand; and no doubt but she is.  The elegance of her house and furniture, and her readiness to discharge all demands upon her, which she does with ostentation enough, and which makes her neighbours, I suppose, like her the better, demonstrate this.  She will propose to do handsome things by her two nieces.  Sally is near marriage—­with an eminent woollen-draper in the Strand, if ye have a mind to it; for there are five or six of them there.

The nieces may be inquired after, since they will be absent, as persons respected by Mowbray and Tourville, for their late worthy uncle’s sake.

Watch ye diligently every turn of my countenance, every motion of my eye; for in my eye, and in my countenance will ye find a sovereign regulator.  I need not bid you respect me mightily:  your allegiance obliges you to that:  And who that sees me, respects me not?

Priscilla Partington (for her looks so innocent, and discretion so deep, yet seeming so softly) may be greatly relied upon.  She will accompany the mother, gorgeously dressed, with all her Jew’s extravagance flaming out upon her; and first induce, then countenance, the lady.  She has her cue, and I hope will make her acquaintance coveted by my charmer.

Miss Partington’s history is this:  the daughter of Colonel Sinclair’s brother-in-law:  that brother-in-law may have been a Turkey-merchant, or any merchant, who died confoundedly rich:  the colonel one of her guardians [collateral credit in that to the old one:] whence she always calls Mrs. Sinclair Mamma, though not succeeding to the trust.

She is just come to pass a day or two, and then to return to her surviving guardian’s at Barnet.

Miss Partington has suitors a little hundred (her grandmother, an alderman’s dowager, having left her a great additional fortune,) and is not trusted out of her guardian’s house without an old governante, noted for discretion, except to her Mamma Sinclair, with whom now-and-then she is permitted to be for a week together.

Pris. will Mamma-up Mrs. Sinclair, and will undertake to court her guardian to let her pass a delightful week with her—­Sir Edward Holden he may as well be, if your shallow pates will not be clogged with too many circumstantials.  Lady Holden, perhaps, will come with her; for she always delighted in her Mamma Sinclair’s company, and talks of her, and her good management, twenty times a day.