should happen in this family; that which I most own is my father’s ill-health, which, though it be not in that extremity it has been, yet keeps him still a prisoner in his chamber, and for the most part to his bed, which is reason enough.  But, besides, I can give you others.  I am here much more out of people’s way than in town, where my aunt and such as pretend an interest in me, and a power over me, do so persecute me with their good nature, and take it so ill that they are not accepted, as I would live in a hollow tree to avoid them.  Here I have nobody but my brother to torment me, whom I can take the liberty to dispute with, and whom I have prevailed with hitherto to bring none of his pretenders to this place, because of the noise all such people make in a country, and the tittle-tattle it breeds among neighbours that have nothing to do but to inquire who marries and who makes love.  If I can but keep him still in that humour Mr. Bennet and I are likely to preserve our state and treat at distance like princes; but we have not sent one another our pictures yet, though my cousin Molle, who was his agent here, begged mine very earnestly.  But, I thank God, an imagination took him one morning that he was falling into a dropsy, and made him in such haste to go back to Cambridge to his doctor, that he never remembers anything he has to ask of me, but the coach to carry him away.  I lent it most willingly, and gone he is.  My eldest brother goes up to town on Monday too; perhaps you may see him, but I cannot direct you where to find him, for he is not yet resolved himself where to lie; only ’tis likely Nan may tell you when he is there.  He will make no stay, I believe.  You will think him altered (and, if it be possible) more melancholy than he was.  If marriage agrees no better with other people than it does with him, I shall pray that all my friends may ’scape it.  Yet if I were my cousin, H. Danvers, my Lady Diana should not, if I could help it, as well as I love her:  I would try if ten thousand pound a year with a husband that doted on her, as I should do, could not keep her from being unhappy.  Well, in earnest, if I were a prince, that lady should be my mistress, but I can give no rule to any one else, and perhaps those that are in no danger of losing their hearts to her may be infinitely taken with one I should not value at all; for (so says the Justinian) wise Providence has ordained it that by their different humours everybody might find something to please themselves withal, without envying their neighbours.  And now I have begun to talk gravely and wisely, I’ll try if I can go a little further without being out.  No, I cannot, for I have forgot already what ’twas I would have said; but ’tis no matter, for, as I remember, it was not much to the purpose, and, besides, I have paper little enough left to chide you for asking so unkind a question as whether you were still the same in my thoughts.  Have you deserved to be otherwise; that is, am I no more in yours?  For till that be, it’s impossible the other should; but that will never be, and I shall always be the same I am.  My heart tells me so, and I believe it; for were it otherwise, Fortune would not persecute me thus.  Oh, me! she’s cruel, and how far her power may reach I know not, only I am sure, she cannot call back time that is past, and it is long since we resolved to be for ever