Letter LIX

Summary

From Mrs. B. to her Father and Mother.

Ever dear, and Ever honoured,

I must write this one Letter to you, altho’ I have had the Happiness to see you so lately; because Mr. B. is now about to honour me with the Tour he so kindly promised to me, when with you; and it may therefore be several Months, perhaps, before I have again the Pleasure of paying you the like dutiful Respects.

You know his kind Promise, That he would, for every dear Baby I present him with, take an Excursion with me afterwards, in order to establish and confirm my Health.

The Task I have undertaken of dedicating all my Writing Amusements to the dearest of Gentlemen; the full Imployment I have, when at home; the frequent Rambles he has been so often pleas’d to indulge me in, with my dear Miss Goodwin, to Kent, to London, to Bedfordshire, to Lincolnshire, and to my Lady Davers’s, take from me the Necessity of writing to your honoured Selves, to my Miss Darnford that was, and to Lady Davers, so often as I formerly thought myself obliged to do, when I saw all my worthy Friends so seldom; the same things, moreover, occurring this Year, as to our Conversations, Visits, Friends, Imployments, and Amusements, (with little Variation) that fell out the last, as they must do in a Family so uniform and methodical as ours.

I have, for these Reasons, more Leisure to pursue my domestick Duties, which are increas’d upon me; and when I have said, That I am every Day more and more happy in my beloved Mr. B. in Miss Goodwin, my Billy, and my Davers, and now, newly, in my sweet little Pamela, (for so, you know, Lady Davers would have her called, rather than by her own Name) what can I say more?

As to the Tour I spoke of, you know, the first Part of Mr. B.'s obliging Scheme is to carry me to France; for he has already travell’d with me over the greatest Part of England; and I am sure, by my Passage last Year, to the Isle of Wight, I shall not be afraid of crossing the Water from Dover thither; and he will, when we are at Paris, he says, take my further Directions (that was his kind Expression) whither to go next.