'Give me your congratulations,' writes the now Mrs. Chapone, to Miss Carter, from town, December the 9th, 1760, 'my dear friend; but, as much for my brother and friend (Mr. Thomas Mulso and Miss Prescott) as for myself; for, in truth, I could not have enjoyed my own happiness in an union with the man of my choice, had I been forced to leave them in the same uncomfortable state of tedious and almost hopeless expectation in which they have suffered so long. I shall rejoice to hear that you are coming to town, and shall hope for many a comfortable tete-a-tete with you in my lodgings in Carey Street; for there I must reside till Mr. Chapone can get a house that suits him, which is no easy matter, as he is so confined in point of situation,' &c. &c. Pleasing as might be the prospect of her marriage pleasures, it will soon be seen that, as Mrs. Barbauld wrote, 'her married life was short, and,' short as it was, 'not very happy!' Scarcely is Mrs. Chapone first settled, when _she seems to complain of being in lodgings_; and, when her husband has taken a house, _still she regrets living_ in Arundel Street, as this is '_very wide from_ Clarges Street, where' she supposes that her friend _Miss Carter's_ '_residence_ is fixed.' Even now, dissatisfied with 'a life of hurry and engagement,' she puts 'the drudgery of answering all the congratulatory letters,' heaped on them as newly married, 'upon Mr. Chapone; who, _poor man_,' says his wife, 'was _forced to humour_ me _a little at first_.' Here is not the worst. '_I have more hours to myself_,' she adds, '_than I wish for_; for business usually allows me _very little of my husband's company_, except at meals.' Instead of 'many a comfortable tete-a-tete with' Miss Carter, whom she assures of her 'most perfect dissent' from the maxim of Johnson's school, 'that a married woman can have no friendship but with her husband,' Chapone himself, pleased with Miss Carter's old friendship, is represented as wondering why she never visits his wife. 'Surely, my dear,' he would say to her, 'if Miss Carter loved you, she would sometimes have spent a day with you; and then I should have known her better. _If ever she loved you, I fancy she left it off on your being married._' Mrs. Chapone's letters may explain the absence of Miss Carter. What friend would be in haste to run to her, who tells that she 'lived in dirt,' and in 'puddling lodgings;' and who adds, 'at last,' that she reckons herself to be but 'tolerably settled?' Lengthened courtships too seldom conclude with happy marriages. Six years of the lives of one pair, 1754 to 1760, was by far too long to make love. Our choice may prove to be our lot, just when our lot is no more our choice. Miss Mulso was also more than old enough for Mrs. Chapone. When women are of disputatious dispositions[5], fixed in their notions, and do not like learned husbands[6], because they may hope to rule simple ones, they should marry before the age of thirty-three.