My most grateful respects and thanks to my good Lord Davers; to the Earl, and his excellent Countess; and most particularly to Lady Betty (with whose kind compliments your ladyship acquaints me), and to Mr. H. for all your united congratulations on my recovery.  What obligations do I lie under to such noble and generous well-wishers!—­I can make no return but by my prayers, that God, by his goodness, will supply all my defects.  And these will always attend you, from, my dearest lady, your ever obliged sister, and humble servant,

P.B.

Mr. H. is just arrived.  He says, he comes a special messenger, to make a report how my face has come off.  He makes me many compliments upon it.  How kind your ladyship is, to enter so favourably into the minutest concerns, which you think, may any way affect my future happiness in your dear brother’s opinion!—­I want to pour out all my joy and my thankfulness to God, before you, and the good Countess of C——!  For I am a happy, yea, a blessed creature!  Mr. B.’s boy, your ladyship’s boy, and my boy, is charmingly well; quite strong, and very forward, for his months; and his papa is delighted with him more and more.

LETTER LXXXIII

MY DEAR MISS DARNFORD,

I hope you are happy and well.  You kindly say you can’t be so, till you hear of my perfect recovery.  And this, blessed be God! you have heard already from Mr. B.

As to your intimation of the fair Nun, ’tis all happily over.  Blessed be God for that too!  And I have a better and more endearing husband than ever.  Did you think that could be?

My Billy too improves daily, and my dear parents seem to have their youth renewed like the eagle’s.  How many blessings have I to be thankful for!

We are about to turn travellers, to the northern counties.  I think quite to the borders:  and afterwards to the western, to Bath, Bristol, and I know not whither myself:  but among the rest, to Lincolnshire, that you may be sure of.  Then how happy shall I be in my dear Miss Darnford!

I long to hear whether poor Mrs. Jewkes is better or worse for the advice of the doctor, whom I ordered to attend her from Stamford, and in what frame her mind is.  Do vouchsafe her a visit in my name; tell her, if she be low spirited, what God hath done for me, as to my recovery, and comfort her all you can; and bid her spare neither expence nor attendance, nor any thing her heart can wish for; nor the company of any relations or friends she may desire to be with her.

If she is in her last stage, poor soul! how noble will it be in you to give her comfort and consolation in her dying hours!  Although we can merit nothing at the hand of God, yet I have a notion, that we cannot deserve more of one another, and in some sense, for that reason, of him, than in our charities on so trying an exigence!  When the poor soul stands shivering, as it were, on the verge of death, and has nothing strong, but its fears and doubts; then a little balm poured into the wounds of the mind, a little comforting advice to rely on God’s mercies, from a good person, how consolatory must it be!  And how, like morning mists before the sun, must all diffidences and gloomy doubts, be chased away by it!