LETTER LXXVI.
_From Miss Cowley to Miss Hardcastle._
_January 24._
My dear Lucy will not expect to find me in the broad road of folly and
laughter, with so many admonitions of wisdom as I have of late been
favoured with; I repeat the word _favoured_; for poor and weak must be
the mind which does not profit from such lessons as I have had to study!
Do not, however, take the alarm; I hope, I shall escape dullness,
although I am become somewhat graver than in the days of my flippancy,
and _rude_ health. My poor Horace! But I dare not trust myself with the
subject! But is it not wonderful that no one can be found to comfort the
Earl of S——, but his son’s friend, whose heart is pierced with an
anguish as bitter and acute as his own! I am selfish, I am ashamed to
tell you that I am become fretful and nervous. You must come, my Lucy; I
want you to sustain and to chide me. My spirits are weakened, and my
mind is assailed by apprehensions which I dare not give to you. This
news from Lisbon has been hurtful to me. I send you enclosed a letter
which may make you smile: it did not move a muscle in my face. Lady
Maclairn undertook to reply to it for me. She was obliged to answer a
letter of condolence which Mrs. Serge thought it polite to send to her
“dear cousin.” I believe her ladyship hazarded to give her correspondent
a little wholesome advice, which will be well for her if she understands
its value. Mrs. Heartley has received letters from her son Henry; he is
coming home. His friend’s death, with his dying advice to the young man,
make only a part of those motives which induce Henry to quit his present
situation. Mr. Bembridge, the deceased, has left him an estate in
Berkshire of three hundred pounds _per annum_; and Henry wisely thinks,
that with this provision and Mary Howard, he shall be as rich as a
Nabob, with a ruined constitution, and twenty lacks of rupees. “He will
have letters before he embarks, which will dash from his lips this cup
of happiness,” observed the anxious mother. “Miss Howard is now in a
very different situation from that, under which my poor boy vowed to
live, and to labour for her. I would not on any account have the captain
made acquainted with my son’s hopes. He thinks Henry is right to return
home; but I now wish him to remain where he is for a few years.” “Leave
him to Providence,” replied I, “and enjoy the blessings before you.
Alice will be soon happy, and who knows whether one wedding may not be
followed by another? a little money will not spoil Mary Howard, or
change Captain Flint’s nature.” “I shall take care,” observed she
thoughtfully, “to prevent Henry from coming hither; I wish Alice were
settled, I should immediately go to town, and wait there for my son’s
arrival.” Cannot you, Lucy, find out whether Mary’s _colour_ is yet
_lilac_. Alice thinks it is; but we may be conjecturing on false
grounds; for Alice Heartley and Rachel Cowley are very simple girls; yet
I do believe the captain wishes to see Henry united to him by the
tenderest ties. He even proposed the other day to Malcolm to wait for
his brother’s arrival before he married. Malcolm smiled; but declined
the advice.
You saw enough of our doctor, when you were at Farefield, to enter into
the spirit of my allusion, when I call him the sun which cheers us. We
may say with truth that we live in his smiles. Should you fancy this
expression too poetical to suit with Douglass’s stern face, it is
because you have not seen him when with a patient who he thinks wants
comfort more than medicine. Did they inform you that he never quitted my
room during six and thirty hours? Horace will love him, Lucy, and you
will be grateful. Amongst other ingenious hypotheses which he maintained
this morning was one that will please you; for he proved to
demonstration that Miss Cowley “had the strength of a horse.” He has
been scolding me for this last hour; and has provoked me to laugh at him
and myself.
Oh! how tedious are the hours till I hear from you. Mrs. Allen sends her
good wishes with your