Men have a thousand advantages over us, but in the affair of courtship they add cunning to all their other accomplishments, and are as . zealous to deceive, as if their lives would be made happy by the cheat. However, they will find it a sad mistake at last, if perjury is to be accounted for; although your false traitor, like many others, may look on that time at a great distance. But I suppose he thinks himself excused, as being more knave than fool, which title, indeed, is so highly due to him, that, Į believe, none will do him such manifest wrong as to dispute it; and I am sure, the blacker he appears, the greater reason you have to bless that Providence, which permitted him to break the contract; for without doubt, he that proved

ill a lover to the best of mistresses, would have made an intolerable husband to the best of wives; and ill usage would have cost you more than his infidelity. I am sensible a heart so generous and constant as your's, cannot easily efface the deep impression he has made in it; that must be the work of time, with God's assistance, which, I hope, will never fail you. I do assure you, I am deeply touched with every thing that concerns you; nor is it without great regret, that I submit to my unhappy circumstances detaining me from being the companion of your melancholy hours, which I should endeavour with all my power, to divert.

You say it is a daily aggravation to your trouble, to think you suffered yourself to be so easily imposed upon; but that, as I told you before, is our common fate, although all impostors

are not equally industrious to be wicked; and you ought not to condemn your own judgment, for want of sagacity to discover a cheat, as it would be to arraign the conduct of almost all the human race.

Pardon me, dear madam, for troubling you so far. Indeed I might have told you at first what I must mention now, and what you know already, that he only can give us comfort whom we seldom regard but when we are driven to it by necessity. Solomon, who had tried all the alluring charms of love and beauty, whose quality and riches gave him an opportunity to gratify every inclination, without any bounds to his wishes, could call them all "vanity and vexation of spirit." It is no wonder, then, if every one of us discover the same truth to our own cost. Let us therefore resolve, as much as we can, to submit our wills to the will of our heavenly Father, who sees all our actions, and has so decreed, that our way to everlasting happiness should be through the wilderness of affliction. I am,

Dear madam,

Your sincere friend

F 2

66

PART V.

MISCELLANEOUS.

ON CLEANLINESS AND BEHAVIOUR IN COMPANY.

LETTER LI.

From Portia to her Daughter Sophia.

MY DEAR SOPHIA,

Your last letter, which I received some weeks ago, gave me the greatest pleasure. You are as much improved in your writing as I could have wished; and more indeed than I could have expected. Your expressions of duty and obedience are extremely agreeable: they, at once discover a good heart and a clear head. Do not make yourself uneasy, my dear, because you can never repay the favours I have done you. already. I enjoy as much pleasure in bestowing, I am repaid as you can possibly do in receiving them: and if I should have the additional happiness to see you become a polite and virtuous woman, I shall be doubly rewarded. stranger, indeed, which we can never return, is To receive favours from a always disagreeable, and sometimes dangerous But, with parent and child, the case is very dif ferent. The connexion between them is so close

by nature, that all the good offices in the world can hardly make it closer. I am glad to hear that you live so happily. It is no more than I had reason to expect, from the sweetness of your . own disposition, and the, prudence of your governess; and I should be sorry if you considered her orders, with regard to cleanliness, as any diminution of your happiness, for she is certainly in the right.

A

Cleanliness, my dear, is a habit, I had almost said a virtue, which you cannot learn too soon, nor retain too long, both from a regard to yourself and to the world around you. It will at once contribute to the ease and health of your body, and be the means of introducing you into polite and genteel company; at least the opposite extreme of dirtiness will certainly deprive you of that advantage; it will either make your company to be shunned; or, if that cannot be done, it will always render your presence disagreeable.

But beware my dear, that you do not confound cleanliness with finery; nor mistake the one for the other. They are as distinct in their nature as any two things can well be; and, though not inconsistent, are frequently found to be separated. A woman may be very neat and clean, in a plain and simple dress; and she may be very dirty and tawdry, in a fine and costly one. There is Miss Molesworth; she never wears any thing above a plain silk gown; that, and all the other parts of her dress, which are equally simple, she puts on with such elegance and propriety, as pleases the eye of every

but

one that beholds her: whilst Lady Dormer, on the contrary, though drest in the richest satin brocade, and loaded with a profusion of jewels and pearls, is, after all, so slovenly and tawdry, that she may rather be said to carry her clothes like a porter, than to wear them like a welldrest lady.

I therefore expect you will obey your gover ness's orders in this, and in every thing else, because I am confident she will never order you to do any thing but what is just and reasonable. But you say, it consumes a graat deal of time: I am persuaded you will always find as much as you ought to bestow (in order to be neat) between the time that is usual for leaving off school and that of going to dinner. Besides, it will, every day require less, for the more you prac tise it, the easier it will become; and a twelvemonth hence, I dare say, you will be able to dress yourself as well in half an hour, as you can do at present in a whole one. You may likewise consider it as a kind of diversion or relaxation from more serious business; and diversions, you know, of one sort or other, you must have. Your papa, your brothers and sis ters join in love to you.

I ever am,

Your affectionate mother,

PORTIA.