“I think you did wisely, as well as kindly, in letting my neice partake of the pleasures of your neighbourhood. To be within the sound of a ball, and not allow’d to go to it, must seem a hardship to a young person.... Life never knows the return of spring, and I am always an advocate for their gathering the primroses of their time. A young person not allow’d to please himself, sometimes will lose any desire to please others. “I think it would be very desirable for my brother to be a prebend of Canterbury. There is a local dignity in it, and a clergyman in the neighbourhood of Canterbury ought to have a stall in the cathedral, in which he can take a nap with decorum. I should think from the kind disposition the primate has shown for the family, he will lend a favorable ear to my brother’s application.... So great is his respect and tenderness for his brother, Sir William, that perhaps the request, supported by him, would have additional force. “... I am glad my good friend, Mr. Brown, is employed by so rich a person as Lord Bristol. Such an income as his lordship’s cannot be annually expended on domestick expenses without foolish prodigality and waste.... I am very glad Mr. Brown likes me as a correspondent; for I am obliged to make a very paltry figure to him as an employer. He is narrowly circumscrib’d, both in space and expense; but he really gives the poor widow and her paltry plans as great attention as he could bestow on an unlimited commission and an unbounded space. He has made a plan to make my grounds, in prospect of the house and new rooms, very pleasing, and will execute as much of it every year as I choose, the expense being agreed upon, which will keep pace with the improvements. The only way to cheat old Time is, while it robs us of some enjoyments and pleasures, to be providing new ones. I am a great deal younger, I think, since I came into my new House, from its cheerfulness; and, from its admirable conveniences and comforts, less afraid of growing old. My friends and acquaintances are much pleased with it, ... and I am not afraid to confess the pleasure I take in their finding it agreable and commodious for company. But the great satisfaction I feel, as its inhabitant, I dare confess to few; for few would hear it without envy. People are not very envious at any advantages they see another possess, if they do not perceive those advantages add to the happiness of the possessor. Many a wrinkled old virgin makes it a necessary article of merit in a blooming girl, that she should not know she is handsome. “... The Bishop of Durham is going to be married to Miss Boughton. She is a very proper Person for a wife to a grave bishop—a woman of good family, good character, and good temper.