to settle my resolves not to encounter a second; but she treats Arthur, her only son, and _certainly_ a favourite, as frigidly as she behaves to me; and with her daughter, there is a perpetual _sparring_ kept up, which to my unaccustomed ear is perfectly dreadful, though at the same time, she is evidently vain of Louisa's beauty and accomplishments. To Mr. Otway she is _civil_, and towards my poor uncle, _officious_ to excess, without being _able_ to look kind. My cousin is very handsome, and if she had been _your_ child, would, I believe, have been very amiable, for she is good-natured, in spite of every effort to make her the contrary; and her love for Arthur is genuine, I believe, though of a species very new to me. Her person is encumbered with ornaments, and her mind with fashion. Her understanding is excellent, and _will_ break its bounds, and start forth through all the London fogs that would obscure its light; but it is only in accidental scintillations that Louisa's brightness discovers itself, and _then_, sarcasm is generally the medium through which it shines; nothing can exceed the stupid inanity of such conversation as I hear at my aunt's, where _people_ only are ever discussed. It is one eternal round of dress, public places, and gossip. _Every_ body is said to be out of town, yet the streets are full. _Nobody_ is ever in London at this season, yet the Howards live in a crowd of society, and would be very angry with _any_ body who ventured to affirm that their acquaintance is not _first-rate_. Mr. Otway reconciles many apparent incongruities through his explanations, when we reach our lodgings at night, and I am already bidding fair to part with the nick-name which Louisa has bestowed upon me of the "novice of Saint Patrick." My _Mentor_ tells me, that London is in fact, at this moment, full of people who are ashamed of not being at their country seats, the watering places, or on the continent; and are detained here _malgrè_ for want of money to go elsewhere, or pay off the bills which continue daily to increase, while they remain in town, _shying_ each other. It is true that the people do not imprison themselves: they meet in the streets, in the shops, in the park, at the theatres; but there seems to be a conventional agreement to tell lies, which are permitted, like base metal, to circulate in the place of sterling coin, though known to be counterfeit by all who use it as a medium of exchange. There is a sort of _sinister_ honesty in this compact, as deception is avoided in the universality of the fraud. One family is detained by Dr.----, who will not suffer his patient to undertake as yet a journey to Leamington. Another is just _going_ to France. A third _waits_ for a carriage which has been promised by the coachmaker, but is not _quite_ finished, and so on. Not a word of truth in any of the stories. A country bumpkin, however, benefits by all this _charlatanerie_, and finds food for eyes, ears, and reflection, at a