SIR,—­Your last came safe, and I shall follow your direction for the address of this, though, as you say, I cannot imagine what should tempt anybody to so severe a search for them, unless it be that he is not yet fully satisfied to what degree our friendship is grown, and thinks he may best inform himself from them.  In earnest, ’twould not be unpleasant to hear our discourse.  He forms his with so much art and design, and is so pleased with the hopes of making some discovery, and I [who] know him as well as he does himself, cannot but give myself the recreation sometimes of confounding him and destroying all that his busy head had been working on since the last conference.  He gives me some trouble with his suspicions; yet, on my conscience, he is a greater to himself, and I deal with so much franchise as to tell him so; and yet he has no more the heart to ask me directly what he would so fain know, than a jealous man has to ask (one that might tell him) whether he were a cuckold or not, for fear of being resolved of that which is yet a doubt to him.  My eldest brother is not so inquisitive; he satisfies himself with persuading me earnestly to marry, and takes no notice of anything that may hinder me, but a carelessness of my fortune, or perhaps an aversion to a kind of life that appears to have less of freedom in’t than that which at present I enjoy.  But, sure, he gives himself another reason, for ’tis not very long since he took occasion to inquire for you very kindly of me; and though I could then give but little account of you, he smiled as if he did not altogether believe me, and afterwards maliciously said he wondered you did not marry.  And I seemed to do so too, and said, if I knew any woman that had a great fortune, and were a person worthy of you, I should wish her you with all my heart.  “But, sister,” says he, “would you have him love her?” “Do you doubt it?” did I say; “he were not happy in’t else.”  He laughed, and said my humour was pleasant; but he made some question whether it was natural or not.  He cannot be so unjust as to let me lose him, sure, I was kind to him though I had some reason not to take it very well when he made that a secret to me which was known to so many that did not know him; but we shall never fall out, I believe, we are not apt to it, neither of us.

If you are come back from Epsom, I may ask you how you like drinking water?  I have wished it might agree as well with you as it did with me; and if it were as certain that the same thing would do us good as ’tis that the same thing would please us, I should not need to doubt it.  Otherwise my wishes do not signify much, but I am forbid complaints, or to express my fears.  And be it so, only you must pardon me if I cannot agree to give you false hopes; I must be deceived myself before I can deceive you, and I have so accustomed myself to tell you all that I think, that I must either say nothing, or that which I believe to be true.