I cannot say but that I have wanted Jane; but it has been rather to have somebody to talk with of you, than that I needed anybody to put me in mind of you, and with all her diligence I should have often prevented her in that discourse.  Were you at Althorp when you saw my Lady Sunderland and Mr. Smith, or are they in town?  I have heard, indeed, that they are very happy; but withal that, as she is a very extraordinary person herself, so she aimed at doing extraordinary things, and when she had married Mr. Smith (because some people were so bold as to think she did it because she loved him) she undertook to convince the world that what she had done was in mere pity to his sufferings, and that she could not go a step lower to meet anybody than that led her, though when she thought there were no eyes on her, she was more gracious to him.  But perhaps this might not be true, or it may be she is now grown weary of that constraint she put upon herself.  I should have been sadder than you if I had been their neighbour to have seen them so kind; as I must have been if I had married the Emperor.  He used to brag to me always of a great acquaintance he had there, what an esteem my lady had for him, and had the vanity (not to call it impudence) to talk sometimes as if he would have had me believe he might have had her, and would not; I’ll swear I blushed for him when I saw he did not.  He told me too, that though he had carried his addresses to me with all the privacy that was possible, because he saw I liked it best, and that ’twas partly his own humour too, yet she had discovered it, and could tell that there had been such a thing, and that it was broke off again, she knew not why; which certainly was a lie, as well as the other, for I do not think she ever heard there was such a one in the world as

Your faithful friend.

Letter 28.—­Dorothy’s allusion to the “Seven Sleepers” refers to a story which occurs in the Golden Legend and other places, of seven noble youths of Ephesus, who fled from persecution to a cave in Mount Celion.  After two hundred and thirty years they awoke, but only to die soon afterwards.  The fable is said to have arisen from a misinterpretation of the text, “They fell asleep in the Lord.”

SIR,—­I did not lay it as a fault to your charge that you were not good at disguise; if it be one, I am too guilty on’t myself to accuse another.  And though I have been told it shows an unpractisedness in the world, and betrays to all that understand it better, yet since it is a quality I was not born with, nor ever like to get, I have always thought good to maintain that ’twas better not to need it than to have it.

I give you many thanks for your care of my Irish dog, but I am extremely out of countenance your father should be troubled with it.  Sure, he will think I have a most extravagant fancy; but do me the right as to let him know I am not so possessed with it as to consent he should be employed in such a commission.