I do really think my good mother grows so fond of Mr Faulkland, that if he goes on at this rate, he will get the start even of Sir George in her affections--'Mr _Faulkland_ said so and so; Mr _Faulkland_ is of opinion; and I am sure you will allow Mr _Faulkland_ to be a good judge of such and such things.' To say the truth, the man improves upon you every hour you know him. And yet I have discovered in him some of those little (and they are _but_ little) alloys to his many good qualities, which Sir George at first told me of. The interest I may one day have in him makes me a closer observer than I should otherwise be. There _is_ that sly turn to ridicule which my brother mentioned; yet, to do him justice, he never employs it, but where it is deserved; and then too with so much vivacity and good humour, that one cannot be angry with him. We had a good deal of company at dinner with us to day; amongst the rest, young Sayers, who is just returned from his travels, as _he_ calls it. You remember he went away a good humoured, inoffensive, quiet fool; he has brought no one ingredient of that character back with him but the last; for such a stiff, conceited, overbearing, talkative, impertinent coxcomb, does not now exist. His mother, who, poor woman, you know originally made a simpleton of the boy, contributes now all in her power to finish the sop; and she carries him about with her everywhere for a show. We were assembled in the drawing room before dinner: in _burst_ (for it was not a common entry) Master Sayers, and his mamma, the cub handing in the old lady--_So_ stiff, and _so_ aukward, and _so_ ungraceful, and so _very_ unlike Mr Faulkland, that I pitied the poor thing, who thought that every body would admire him as much as his mother did. After he had been presented to the ladies (for it was the first time we had seen him since he came home), he took a turn or two about the room, to exhibit his person: then applying himself to a picture which hung over the door (a fine landscape of Claude Lorrain, which Mr Faulkland himself had brought over and given to Sir George), he asked my brother, in a tone scarce articulate, whether we had any _painters_ in England? My mother, who by chance heard him, and by greater chance understood him, answered, before Sir George had time, _Painters_, Sir! yes, sure, and some very good ones too; why, you cannot have forgot _that_; it is not much above a year since you went abroad, (for you must know he had been recalled upon the death of an uncle, who had left him his estate). I observed Mr Faulkland constrained a very fly laugh, on account both of the _manner_ of my mother's taking his question, and her innocently-undesigned reprimand. Sayers pretended not to hear her, but looking through his fingers, as if to throw the picture into perspective, that is a pretty good piece, said he, for a copy. Oh! cry'd his mother, there is no pleasing _you_--people