From Miss Darnford to Mrs. B.

My dear Mrs. B.

Pray give my Service to your Mr. B. and tell him, he is very unpolite, in his Reflections upon me, in relation to Mr. Murray, when he supposes I regret the Loss of him. You are much more favourable and just too, I will say, to your Polly Darnford. These Gentlemen, the very best of them, are such Indelicates! They think so highly of their saucy Selves, and confident Sex, as if a Lady cannot from her Heart despise them. But if she turns them off, as they deserve, and happens to continue her Dislike, what should be interpreted in her Favour, as a just and regular Piece of Conduct, is turn’d against her, and it must proceed from Spite.

Mr. B. may think he knows a good deal of the Sex. But perhaps, were I as malicious as he is reflecting, (and yet, if I have any Malice, he has raised it) I could say, That his Acquaintance was not with the most unexceptionable, till he had the Happiness to know you: And he has not long enough been happy in you, I find, to do Justice to those who are proud to emulate your Virtues.

But I can't bear, it seems, to see my Sister address’d and complimented, and preferr’d by one whom I had thought in my own Power! But he may be mistaken: With all his Sagacity, he has been often. Nor is it so mortifying a thing to me, as he imagines, to sit and see two such Anticks playing their Pugs Tricks, as he calls them, with one another.

But you hardly ever saw such Pug's Tricks play’d as they play, at so early a Time of Courtship. The Girl hangs upon his Arm, and receives his empty Head on her Shoulder, already, with a Freedom that would be censurable in a Bride, before Folks.