Letter XXI

Summary

From Miss Darnford. In Answer to Mrs. B.’s, p. 75.

My dear Mrs. B.

You are highly obliging to me in expressing so warmly your Wishes to have me with you. I know not any body in this World, out of our own Family, in whose Company I should be happier: But my Papa won't part with me, I think; tho’ I had secur’d my Mamma in my Interest; and I know Nancy would be glad of my Absence, because the dear perversly Envious thinks me more valued than she is; and yet, foolish Girl, she don't consider, that if her Envy be well-grounded, I should return with more than double Advantages to what I now have, improv’d by your charming Example and Conversation.

My Papa affects to be in a fearful Pet at your lecturing of him so justly; for my Mamma would shew it him; and he says he will positively demand Satisfaction of Mr. B. for your treating him so freely. And yet he shall hardly think him, he says, on a Rank with him, unless Mr. B. will, on Occasion of the new Commission, take out his Dedimus: And then if he will bring you down to Lincolnshire, and join with him to commit you Prisoner for a Month at the Hall, all shall be well.

It is very obliging in Mr. B. to join in your kind Invitation: But—yet I am loth to say it to you—But the Character of your worthy Gentleman, I doubt, stands a little in the Way with my Papa: For he will have it, that he is just such a Rake as is to be liked by a Lady; one that saves common Appearances, and that's all; and is too handsome, too witty, and too enterprizing, for any honest Man, that's Sir Simon's Phrase, to trust his Daughter with.

My Mamma pleaded his being marry’d.——Ads-dines, Madam, said he, what of all that!What married Man, when a pretty Girl's in the Way, minds his Wife, except she has made him stand in Fear of her? and that's far from the Case here.Why I tell you, added his peevish Highness, if our Polly should happen to slip, (I thank him for his Supposition) he’d make his Lady nurse both her and the Bastard, (another of his polite Expressions) if he had a mind to it, and she durst not refuse him.