I am yours.

Letter 37.

SIR,—­You say I abuse you; and Jane says you abuse me when you say you are not melancholy:  which is to be believed?  Neither, I think; for I could not have said so positively (as it seems she did) that I should not be in town till my brother came back:  he was not gone when she writ, nor is not yet; and if my brother Peyton had come before his going, I had spoiled her prediction.  But now it cannot be; he goes on Monday or Tuesday at farthest.  I hope you did truly with me, too, in saying that you are not melancholy (though she does not believe it).  I am thought so, many times, when I am not at all guilty on’t.  How often do I sit in company a whole day, and when they are gone am not able to give an account of six words that was said, and many times could be so much better pleased with the entertainment my own thoughts give me, that ’tis all I can do to be so civil as not to let them see they trouble me.  This may be your disease.  However, remember you have promised me to be careful of yourself, and that if I secure what you have entrusted me with, you will answer for the rest.  Be this our bargain then; and look that you give me as good an account of one as I shall give you of t’other.  In earnest, I was strangely vexed to see myself forced to disappoint you so, and felt your trouble and my own too.  How often I have wished myself with you, though but for a day, for an hour:  I would have given all the time I am to spend here for it with all my heart.

You could not but have laughed if you had seen me last night.  My brother and Mr. Gibson were talking by the fire; and I sat by, but as no part of the company.  Amongst other things (which I did not at all mind), they fell into a discourse of flying; and both agreed it was very possible to find out a way that people might fly like birds, and despatch their journeys:  so I, that had not said a word all night, started up at that, and desired they would say a little more on’t, for I had not marked the beginning; but instead of that, they both fell into so violent a laughing, that I should appear so much concerned in such an art; but they little knew of what use it might have been to me.  Yet I saw you last night, but ’twas in a dream; and before I could say a word to you, or you to me, the disorder my joy to see you had put me into awakened me.  Just now I was interrupted, too, and called away to entertain two dumb gentlemen;—­you may imagine whether I was pleased to leave my writing to you for their company;—­they have made such a tedious visit, too; and I am so tired with making of signs and tokens for everything I had to say.  Good God! how do those that live with them always?  They are brothers; and the eldest is a baronet, has a good estate, a wife and three or four children.  He was my servant heretofore, and comes to see me still for old love’s sake; but if he could have made me mistress of the world I could not have had him; and yet I’ll swear he has nothing to be disliked in him but his want of tongue, which in a woman might have been a virtue.