Do not be angry, Janetta, but encourage the dimpling smile that so well becomes you. Montgomery dines with me; and I am, with him, to have the felicity of basking in the sunshine of bright eyes at Mrs. Ashburn's route this evening. FILMAR LETTER XVI FROM CAROLINE ASHBURN TO ARTHUR MURDEN How strange an animal is man! How prone to fall into habits, and how difficult it is to prescribe bounds to the growth of absurdity! I did not imagine Mr. Valmont would extend his absurdities so much on the sudden, nor do I know how far you will be inclined to follow his example, when I tell you that Sibella is so really a prisoner even my letters are denied access to her. Yesterday I was honoured with a packet from Mr. Valmont containing my two last letters to Sibella, one written in answer to her's previous to the receipt of your's and the other written in consequence of the information you gave me of her confinement. Mr. Valmont, in his way, treats me with unusual respect; and I can only account for it, by supposing he was pleased with the freedom I used when at Valmont castle in speaking to him of his very improper seclusion of Sibella. My letters were returned unopened; and with them the following Madam, As long as my niece deserved the indulgence of your correspondence I, though against the principle upon which I formed her education continued to allow it. I herewith return your last letters. I would not open them, because I believe you to be incapable of abetting Sibella in the atrocity of her conduct, but I shall hold myself justified therein if you send any more letters after you receive this interdiction. Truly sorry am I to say that Miss Valmont proves herself unworthy of the long illustrious line from whom she claims her name, and of whom she is almost the only surviving descendant. Unfortunate that house whose dignity is left to be supported by a female! Whether in solitude or society, I find the female mind still a mere compound of folly and mischief: greatly do I now regret I ever undertook its guardianship. I have the honour to be, madam Your humble servant, G. VALMONT Mr. Valmont scorns to flatter. Would you have been so candid with respect to the female mind? though once, perhaps, you enrolled yourself among those who endeavour strictly to check the growth of every seed therein except mischief and folly. My patience exhausts itself when I see men of even tolerable talents aiding to sink lower than the brute in value the fairest of God's creatures.--A horse!--Oh, a laborious horse deserves to be canonized in preference to the woman whose sole industry consists in the active destruction of her understanding, who smiles, moves, and speaks, as it were only to prove herself unlike every production of wisdom and nature.