You will also have the name of being very fashionable, if you go much into public, as doubtless you will with Lady Delacour.--Your own good sense must make you aware, my dear, that from her ladyship’s situation and knowledge of the world, it will always be proper, upon all subjects of conversation, for her to lead and you to follow: it would be very unfit for a young girl like you to suffer yourself to stand in competition with Lady Delacour, whose high pretensions to wit and beauty are _indisputable_. I need say no more to you upon this subject, my dear. Even with your limited experience, you must have observed how foolish young people offend those who are the most necessary to their interests, by an imprudent indulgence of their vanity. “Lady Delacour has an incomparable taste in dress: consult her, my dear, and do not, by an ill-judged economy, counteract my views--apropos, I have no objection to your being presented at court. You will, of course, have credit with all her ladyship’s tradespeople, if you manage properly. To know how and when to lay out money is highly commendable, for in some situations, people judge of what one can afford by what one actually spends.--I know of no law which compels a young lady to tell what her age or her fortune may be. You have no occasion for caution yet on one of these points. “I have covered my old carpet with a handsome green baize, and every stranger who comes to see me, I observe, takes it for granted that I have a rich carpet under it. Say every thing that is proper, in your best manner, for me to Lady Delacour. “Adieu, my dear Belinda, “Yours, very sincerely, “SELINA STANHOPE.”