There is now an unexplained interval of two years. Some letters have perhaps been lost or destroyed, one has apparently miscarried; or, still more probably, the brother and sister have been together. But the next letter is still dated from Stowe, where William was evidently established on the most familiar footing. _Stow. Novr ye 6: 1737._ You are even with me for all the want of readiness in writing, ever since I began to correspond: I wou'd tell you how many weeks it is, since I wrote to you my last unanswer'd letter, if my memory was strong enough to carry so remote a period of Chronology in my head: I have sometimes told you I have been ashamed of not writing: I take this occasion to retract all Declarations of that sort, and tell you I never was, nor ever will be ashamed of want of regularity in corresponding, after this last silence of yours: I am aware that you must throw the blame upon ye Post, and say you never received the letter in question, and indeed the Doctor has given me an intimation, yt the thing was to take yt turn, without which you wou'd not have been troubled even with these reproaches. the Letter had nothing in it, and yet I had rather you had receiv'd it, if you are in earnest that you did not. I intend to be in Town the beginning of December: I shall see Mrs. Nedham at Bampton before I come: Yrs W. PITT. I desire you will write immediately to let me know you have no return of ye disorder you had just before you left Hampton court. In the next he refers to Lord Cornbury, a friend, a Tory, and something of a Jacobite. He was a great admirer of Pitt, and had indeed written an ode to him. _Stow. Novr ye 12: 1737._ I do not think myself obliged to thank you for your letter, it was a defence to an accusation, you was under a necessity of pleading and you did it with the confidence of an old offender, and even went so far as to recriminate upon yr accuser: but let the act of oblivion cover all. however that I may thank you for something, I thank you for haveing hardly any remains of yr cold. Pray keep keeping yourself well till December, in one week of which month I hope to see you. Adieu. Yrs Most affecly W. PITT. I wish you the Dutchess of Queensbury and Lady Cardigan with all my heart. How do's Ld Cornbury? CHAPTER IV.