It is very obliging in Mr. B. to join in your kind invitation:  but—­yet I am loth to say it to you—­the character of your worthy gentleman, I doubt, stands a little in the way with my papa.

My mamma pleaded his being married.  “Ads-dines, Madam,” said he, “what of all that!”

“But, Sir,” said I, “I hope, if I may not go to Bedfordshire, you’ll permit me to go to London, when Mrs. B. goes?”

“No,” said he, “positively no!”

“Well, Sir, I have done.  I could hope, however, you would enable me to give a better reason to good Mrs. B. why I am not permitted to accept of the kind invitation, than that which I understand you have been pleased to assign.”

He stuck his hands in his sides, with his usual humourous positiveness.  “Why, then tell her she is a very saucy lady, for her last letter to you, and her lord and master is not to be trusted; and it is my absolute will and pleasure that you ask me no more questions about it.”

“I will very faithfully make this report, Sir.”—­“Do so.”  And so I have.  And your poor Polly Darnford is disappointed of one of the greatest pleasures she could have had.

I can’t help it—­if you truly pity me you can make me easier under the disappointment, than otherwise possible, by favouring me with an epistolary conversation, since I am denied a personal one; and my mamma joins in the request; particularly let us know how Lady Davers’s first visit passes; which Mrs. Peters and Mrs. Jones, who know my lady so well, likewise long to hear.  And this will make us the best amends in your power for the loss of your good neighbourhood, which we had all promised to ourselves.

This denial of my papa comes out, since I wrote the above, to be principally owing to a proposal made him of an humble servant to one of his daughters:  he won’t say which, he tells us, in his usual humourous way, lest we should fall out about it.

“I suppose,” I tell him, “the young gentleman is to pick and choose which of the two he likes best.”  But be he a duke, ’tis all one to Polly, if he is not something above our common Lincolnshire class of fox-hunters.

I have shewn Mr. and Mrs. Peters your letter.  They admire you beyond expression; and Mr. Peters says, he does not know, that ever he did any thing in his life, that gave him so much inward reproach, as his denying you the protection of his family, which Mr. Williams sought to move him to afford you, when you were confined at the Hall, before Mr. B. came down to you, with his heart bent on mischief; and all he comforts himself with is, that very denial, as well as the other hardships you have met with, were necessary to bring about that work of Providence which was to reward your unexampled virtue.

Yet, he says, he doubts he shall not be thought excusable by you, who are so exact in your own duty, since he had the unhappiness to lose such an opportunity to have done honour to his function, had he had the fortitude to have done his; and he has begged of me to hint his concern to you on this head; and to express his hopes, that neither religion nor his cloth may suffer in your opinion, for the fault of one of its professors, who never was wanting in his duty so much before.