I did not chuse to return to Mr Vere's house, as I had only a polite, not a kind invitation. One of his daughters, she who had been present at my marriage, and who always had shewn most affection towards me, was about this time married to a gentleman, whose estate lay in another country. When the bride went home, she pressed me to go with her so warmly, that I could not refuse her; and during the time I staid with her, I received so many marks of tenderness from her, that I resolved to settle in her neighbourhood; and have now a little house near her, where I have resided constantly ever since. I come once or twice a year to pay a visit to my mother, but my reception, as you may see, is always cold, and I seldom stay more than a few days. Old Mr Vere is dead; and his daughters, who were coheiresses to his estate, are all married, so that the family is intirely dispersed; but notwithstanding this, and the number of years that have passed over since my marriage, my mother cannot yet endure the name of the family: and always, as you may have observed, calls me by my maiden name. I was much affected at the story of the amiable Mrs Vere. The sweet melancholy, which predominates in her countenance, shews that the spirits, when broken in the bud of youth, are hardly to be recovered. What a tyrant this lady Grimston is! I did not admire her before, but I now absolutely dislike her. What a wife and a mother has she been to a husband and a daughter, who might have constituted the happiness of a woman of a different temper! And yet she passes for a wonderful good woman, and a pattern of all those virtues of a religion, which meekness and forgiveness characterise. She is mistaken, if she thinks that austerity is necessary to christianity. The most that my charity allows me to believe of such people is, that they impose on _themselves_, at a time when the most discerning perhaps think that they are endeavouring to impose on others. What an angel is my good mother, when compared to this her friend, whom her humility makes her look upon as her superior in virtue! I am very angry with Sir George, who in his resentment, said to me once, that she was like lady Grimston. I then knew but little of that lady's character, or I should have reproved him for it. I conjured Mrs Vere to make her visit longer than she had at first intended. She told me, she would most gladly do it; but that it was a liberty she did not dare to take, unless her mother asked her to prolong it; which, she said, she possibly might do, in complaisance to me. _September 4_