"MY DEAREST SISTER,--It is past four o'clock in the morning, and yet my conscience still keeps me awake till I have answered your two letters. Believe me, my neglect does not in the least proceed from want of affection. One is sometimes teased into going out, till one acquires a sort of habit of society, which it becomes difficult to throw off. Sophia's new lover, Lord Berwick, did not let me enjoy a single day in quiet; and not at all out of regard or respect for my superior merit; but merely because Sophia refuses to stir without me. "The Duke of Leinster's departure for Spain is at last absolutely fixed for next Monday. Lord Worcester heard this at White's club-house, and was so overjoyed that everybody in the room laughed at him. For my part I can scarcely understand why I feel so melancholy at the thought of losing a young man whom I really never cared about; but I am always thus, at parting with anybody to whose face I have become accustomed. Not only am I sorry to lose the Duke of Leinster, but I feel angry and disgusted with Worcester, for desiring his departure. "We were all at the play last night: that is to say Julia, Sophia, Lord W. Somerset, Lord Berwick and Lord Worcester, with your humble servant, in two private boxes adjoining each other. Lord Berwick teases Julia and me from morning till night. He wants us to persuade Sophia to receive a settlement from him of five hundred a year, and to place herself under his protection. We do not like to advise at all on such subjects; and whenever he ventures to touch on them to Sophia herself, she begins to sob and cry as if she were threatened with sudden death! I asked her last night why she accepted so many magnificent presents from his lordship, and suffered him to put himself to such immense expense, if she disliked him so violently. "'Oh, I never said I disliked his carriages, or his jewels, or his nice dinners,' answered Sophia. "Lord Worcester is quite as indefatigable as Lord Berwick, in his endeavours to persuade me to accompany him to Brighton, his lordship having just entered the Tenth Hussars. Lord Berwick proposes taking a fine house at Brighton for Sophia and Julia, and sending down his plate, man-cook, &c., but Sophia says he may hire his fine house if he likes, but for her part she will live with Julia in a smaller one, though at the same time, she shall have no sort of objection to become one at his dinner-parties, if Worcester and myself are present. Thus Sophia has set Lord Berwick to work to plead Worcester's cause for him. I got into a passion one day last week, and declared I would not be teased out of my liberty, which I valued more than my life.