Letter XXIX

Summary

My dear Miss Darnford,

At your Desire, and to oblige your honoured Mamma, and your good Neighbours, I will now acquaint you with the Arrival of Lady Davers, and will write what passes between us: I will not say worthy of Notice; for were I to do so, I should be more brief, perhaps, by much, than you seem to expect. But as my Time is pretty much taken up, and I find I shall be obliged to write a Bit now and a Bit then, you must excuse me, if I dispense with some Forms, which I ought to observe, when I write to one I so dearly love; and so I will give it Journal-wise, as it were, and have no Regard, when it would fetter or break in upon my Freedom of Narration, to Inscription or Subscription; but send it as I have Opportunity: And if you please to favour me so far, as to lend it me, after you have read the Stuff, for the Perusal of my Father and Mother, to whom my Duty and Promise require me to give an Account of my Proceedings, it will save me Transcription, for which I shall have no Time; and then you will excuse Blots and Blurs, and I will trouble myself no further for Apologies on that score, but this one for all.

If you think it worth while, when they have read it, you shall have it again.

Wednesday Morning, Six o’Clock.

For my dear Friend permits me to rise an Hour sooner than my Wont, that I may have Time to scribble; for he is always pleased to see me so imploy’d, or in Reading; often saying, when I am at my Needle, (as his Sister once wrote)a Your Maids can do this, Pamela; but they cannot write as you can. And yet, as he tells me, when I chuse to follow my Needle, as a Diversion from too intense Study, as he is pleased to call it, (but, alas! I know not what Study is, as may be easily guessed by my hasty writing, putting down every thing as it comes) I shall then do as I please.