Overwhelmed by the first, and deprived of the last, her hand shook, her head drooped, and she dared not communicate what she knew must inevitably render her letter unpleasing, and still more depreciate her in his regard, as the occasion of encumbrance, and of injury to his moral reputation. Her free, her liberal, her venturous spirit subdued, intimidated by the force of affection, she only wrote-- "SIR,--I am sorry you have so much to do, and should be ashamed if you put it off to write to me. I have not been at all well this winter. I never before passed such a one in all my life, and I hope you will never know such a one yourself in regard to not being happy. I should be sorry if you did--think I would rather go through it again myself than you should. I long for the summer, the fields are so green, and everything so pleasant at that time of the year. I always do long for the summer, but I think never so much in my life as for this that is coming; though sometimes I wish that last summer had never come. Perhaps you wish so too; and that this summer would not come either. "Hope you will excuse all faults, as I never learnt but one month. "Your obedient humble servant, "A. P." CHAPTER XXIV. Summer arrived, and lords and ladies, who had partaken of all the dissipation of the town, whom opera-houses, gaming-houses, and various other houses had detained whole nights from their peaceful home, were now poured forth from the metropolis, to imbibe the wholesome air of the farmer and peasant, and disseminate, in return, moral and religious principles. Among the rest, Lord and Lady Bendham, strenuous opposers of vice in the poor, and gentle supporters of it in the rich, never played at cards, or had concerts on a Sunday, in the village, where the poor were spies--_he_, there, never gamed, nor drank, except in private, and _she_ banished from her doors every woman of sullied character. Yet poverty and idiotism are not the same. The poor can hear, can talk, sometimes can reflect; servants will tell their equals how they live in town; listeners will smile and shake their heads; and thus hypocrisy, instead of cultivating, destroys every seed of moral virtue.