I know your condescension will give her great comfort; and if she should be hastening to her account, what a pleasure will it give such a lady as you, to have illuminated a benighted mind, when it was tottering on the verge of death!

I know she will want no spiritual help from good Mr. Peters; but then the kind notice of so generally esteemed a young lady, will raise her more than can be imagined:  for there is a tenderness, a sympathy, in the good persons of our sex to one another, that (while the best of the other seem but to act as in office, saying those things, which, though edifying and convincing, one is not certain proceeds not rather from the fortitude of their minds, than the tenderness of their natures) mingles with one’s very spirits, thins the animal mass, and runs through one’s heart in the same lify current (I can’t clothe my thought suitably to express what I would), giving assurance, as well as pleasure, in the most arduous cases, and brightening our misty prospects, till we see the Sun of Righteousness rising on the hills of comfort, and dispelling the heavy fogs of doubt and diffidence.

This it is makes me wish and long as I do, for the company of my dear Miss Darnford.  O when shall I see you?  When shall I?—­To speak to my present case, it is all I long for; and, pardon my freedom of expression, as well as thought, when I let you know in this instance, how early I experience the ardent longings of one in the way I am in.

But I ought not to set my heart upon any thing not in my own power, and which may be subject to accidents, and the control of others.  But let whatever interventions happen, so I have your will to come, I must be rejoiced in your kind intention, although your power should not prove answerable.

But I will say no more, than that I am, my honoured father and mother, your ever dutiful daughter; and, my dear Miss Darnford, your affectionate and obliged P.B.

LETTER XL

From Miss Darnford to Mrs. B.

MY DEAR MRS. B.,

We are greatly obliged to you for every particular article in your entertaining journal, which you have brought, sooner than we wished, to a conclusion.  We cannot express how much we admire you for your judicious charities, so easy to be practised, yet so uncommon in the manner, and for your inimitable conduct in the affair of your frail Polly and the silly Mr. H.

Your account of the visit of the four rakes; of your parting with your noble guests; Mr. H.’s letter (an original indeed!) have all greatly entertained us, as your prerogative hints have amused us:  but we defer our opinion of those hints, till we have the case more fully explained.