Letter II

Summary

My dearest Daughter,

I need not repeat to you the Sense your good Mother and I have of our Happiness, and of our Obligations to your honoured Spouse: You both were pleased Witnesses of it every Hour of the happy Fortnight you passed with us. But still, my Dear, we hardly know how to address ourselves even to You, much less to the ‘Squire, with the Freedom he so often invited us to take: For, I don't know how it is, but tho’ you are our Daughter, and are so far from being lifted up by your high Condition, that we see no Difference in your Behaviour to us your poor Parents; yet, when we look upon you as the Lady of so fine a Gentleman, we cannot forbear having a kind of Respect, and—I don't know what to call it,—that lays a little Restraint upon us! And yet we would not, methinks, let our Minds be run away with the Admiration of worldly Grandeur, so, as to set too much by it.

But your Merit, and your Prudence, my dear Daughter, is so much above all we could ever have any Notion of:—And to have Gentry come only to behold you, and admire you, not so much for your Genteelness and Amiableness neither, as for your Behaviour, and your Affability to Poor as well as Rich, and to hear every one calling you an Angel, and saying, you deserve to be what you are; makes us hardly know how to look upon you but as an Angel indeed! I am sure you have been a good Angel to us!—Since, for your sake, God Almighty has put it into your honour’d Husband's Heart, to make us the happiest Couple in the World: But little less, indeed, we should have been, had we only, in some far distant Land, heard of our dear Child's Happiness, and never partaken of the Benefits of it ourselves. But thus to be provided for!—Thus kindly to be owned, and called Father and Mother by such a brave Gentleman, and thus to be placed, that we have nothing to do, but to bless God, and bless him, and bless you, and hourly pray for you both, is such a Providence, my dear Child, as is too mighty to be borne by us, with Equalness of Temper;