I must confess (but don't you be jealous), that many more people love me now, than ever did before; for since I saw you I have been enabled to do some general services to the country, and to the army, for which both have thanked and praised me, and say they love me. They say so, as you used to do; and if I were to ask any favours of them, they would, perhaps, as readily refuse me; so that I find little real advantage in being beloved, but it pleases my humor.... I long to hear, [he says in another part of the same letter] whether you have continued ever since in that monastery (Block Island); or have broke into the world again, doing pretty mischief; how the lady Wards do, and how many of them are married, or about it; what is become of Mr. B---- and Mr. L----, and what the state of your heart is at this instant? But that, perhaps, I ought not to know; and, therefore, I will not conjure, as you sometimes say I do. If I could conjure, it should be to know what was that _oddest question about me that ever was thought_ of, which you tell me a lady had just sent to ask you. I commend your prudent resolutions, in the article of granting favours to lovers. But, if I were courting you, I could not hardly approve such conduct. I should even be malicious enough to say you were too _knowing_, and tell you the old story of the Girl and the Miller. I enclose you the songs you write for, and with them your Spanish letter with a translation. I honour that honest Spaniard for loving you. It showed the goodness of his taste and judgment. But you must forget him, and bless some worthy young Englishman. Then comes the reference to his Joan (Deborah) which we have quoted in another place. She sends her respectful compliments to Miss Ray, he states; and lastly in a postscript he gives Miss Ray this caution: "As to your spelling, don't let those laughing girls put you out of conceit with it. It is the best in the world, for every letter of it stands for something." The sincerity of this conviction he proved at least once on another occasion by himself spelling his Katy's first name with a C instead of a K. It is to be feared that Miss Ray was a lively flirt, and it is hard to read Franklin's frequent allusions to Deborah in his letters to her without suspecting that he found it necessary at times to use his wife just a little as a shield. The next letter from Franklin to Miss Ray is marked by the understrain of coarse license, which ran through his character, and was partly the note of his age, and partly the note of overflowing vital force.