Thou askest, on reciting the bitter invectives that the lady made against thy poor friend, (standing before her, I suppose, with thy fingers in thy mouth,) What couldst thou say for me?

Have I not, in my former letters, suggested an hundred things, which a friend, in earnest to vindicate or excuse a friend, might say on such an occasion?

But now to current topics, and the present state of matters here.—­It is true, as my servant told thee, that Miss Howe had engaged, before this cursed woman’s officiousness, to use her interest with her friend in my behalf:  and yet she told my cousins, in the visit they made her, that it was her opinion that she would never forgive me.  I send to thee enclosed copies of all that passed on this occasion between my cousins Montague, Miss Howe, myself, Lady Betty, Lady Sarah, and Lord M.

I long to know what Miss Howe wrote to her friend, in order to induce her to marry the despicable plotter; the man whose friendship is no credit to any body; the wicked, wicked man.  Thou hadst the two letters in thy hand.  Had they been in mine, the seal would have yielded to the touch of my warm finger, (perhaps without the help of the post-office bullet;) and the folds, as other placations have done, opened of themselves to oblige my curiosity.  A wicked omission, Jack, not to contrive to send them down to me by man and horse!  It might have passed, that the messenger who brought the second letter, took them both back.  I could have returned them by another, when copied, as from Miss Howe, and nobody but myself and thee the wiser.

That’s a charming girl! her spirit, her delightful spirit!—­not to be married to it—­how I wish to get that lively bird into my cage! how would I make her flutter and fly about!—­till she left a feather upon every wire!

Had I begun there, I am confident, as I have heretofore said,* that I should not have had half the difficulty with her as I have had with her charming friend.  For these passionate girls have high pulses, and a clever fellow may make what sport he pleases with their unevenness—­now too high, now too low, you need only to provoke and appease them by turns; to bear with them, and to forbear to tease and ask pardon; and sometimes to give yourself the merit of a sufferer from them; then catching them in the moment of concession, conscious of their ill usage of you, they are all your own.

* See Vol.  VI.  Letter VII.

But these sedate, contemplative girls, never out of temper but with reason; when that reason is given them, hardly ever pardon, or afford you another opportunity to offend.