My grandmamma, though she was so kindly fond of me, would not suffer me to live with her; because she thought, that her contemplative temper might influence mine, and make me grave, at a time of life, when she is always saying, that cheerfulness is most becoming:  she would therefore turn over her girl to the best of aunts.  But now I fancy, she will allow me to be more than two days in a week her attendant.  My uncle Selby will be glad to spare me.  I shall not be able to bear a jest:  and then, what shall I be good for?

I have made a fine hand of coming to town, he says:  and so I have:  but if my heart is not quite so easy as it was, it is, I hope, a better, at least not a worse heart than I brought up with me.  Could I only have admired this man, my excursion would not have been unhappy.  But this gratitude, this entangling, with all its painful consequence—­But let me say, with my grandmamma, the man is Sir Charles Grandison!  The very man by whose virtues a Clementina was attracted.  Upon my word, my dear, unhappy as she is, I rank her with the first of women.

I have not had a great deal of Sir Charles Grandison’s company; but yet more, I am afraid, than I shall ever have again.  Very true—­O heart! the most wayward of hearts, sigh if thou wilt!

You have seen how little he was with us, when we were absolutely in his reach, and when he, as we thought, was in ours.  But such a man cannot, ought not to be engrossed by one family.  Bless me, Lucy, when he comes into public life, (for has not his country a superior claim to him beyond every private one?) what moment can he have at liberty?  Let me enumerate some of his present engagements that we know of.

The Danby family must have some farther portion of his time.

The executorship in the disposal of the 3000L. in charity, in France as well as in England, will take up a good deal more.

My Lord W——­ may be said to be under his tutelage, as to the future happiness of his life.

Miss Jervois’s affairs, and the care he has for her person, engage much of his attention.

He is his own steward.

He is making alterations at Grandison-hall; and has a large genteel neighbourhood there, who long to have him reside among them; and he himself is fond of that seat.

His estate in Ireland is in a prosperous way, from the works he set on foot there, when he was on the spot; and he talks, as Dr. Bartlett has hinted to us, of making another visit to it.

His sister’s match with Lord G——­ is one of his cares.

He has services to perform for his friend Beauchamp, with his father and mother-in-law, for the facilitating his coming over.

The apprehended visit of Olivia gives him disturbance.

And the Bologna family in its various branches, and more especially Signor Jeronymo’s dangerous state of health, and Signora Clementina’s disordered mind—­O, Lucy!—­What leisure has this man to be in love?—­Yet how can I say so, when he is in love already?  And with Clementina.—­And don’t you think, that when he goes to France on the executorship account, he will make a visit to Bologna?—­Ah, my dear, to be sure he will.