It has fallen out exactly as Mrs. Allen predicted: my restlessness has done no more than to weary my body; my mind travels to you, and I must humour it. We will not talk however of those, who, with palpitating hearts, are, as they journey on, thinking of their first reception, and the embarrassments of an introduction to beings of an higher order than such poor mortals as croud this busy scene. How I should enjoy your defeat, Lucy, when your eyes, for the first time, behold "My fairest amongst women," an epithet you have so unmercifully rallied. You will be candid, and I shall forgive you; only in future acknowledge that I can praise _accurately_, and, in this instance, have praised _soberly_. It is an age since I have examined my talents in this way; but so confident am I that the sight of Miss Howard and her uncle will establish my excellence as a painter, whose hand is guided by truth and nature, that I fearlessly send you two other portraits, which ought long since to have graced your cabinet. I wish Sedley was thirty years older than he is, it would save me the time necessary to delineate not only the features, but the character of Mr. Greenwood, who, "In manners gentle, in affection mild, In wit a man, simplicity a child," brings to my fancy what Sedley will be when a grandfather, and whom I already reverence as one every time Mr. Greenwood speaks. They certainly are near relations; only nature, always provident as well as kind in her donations, thought that one at a time would be sufficient for her honour; and one in a country enough to allure mankind to a love of goodness and simplicity of heart. One trait which they possess in common, convinces me that my hypothesis is not altogether fallacious; for I dare not be saucy with either, though I love them both. You who are deeper than myself in metaphysics, will descover the cause for my respect and good behaviour with them, when, with others, "my lips utter folly," and I am as "a bubbling brook."