“Certainly you are the best letter-writer (besides writing the best hand) in the world. I have just been reading over again your two long letters, and I perceive they make me very envious.
“All I can gather from your clear, and I have no doubt
faithful history of Maltese politics, is that the good Doctor, though a firm friend, an excellent
fancier of brooches, a good husband, an upright advocate, and in short all that
they say upon tombstones—for I do not recollect that they celebrate any
fraternal virtues there—yet is he but a moody brother. That your sister-inlaw
is pretty much like what all sisters-in-law have been since the first happy
invention of the happy marriage state . . . and that you, my dear Sarah, have proved yourself as unfit to
flourish in a little proud garrison
| 122 | MISS STODDART’S LOVERS. |
“If I possibly can, I will prevail upon Charles to write to your brother by the conveyance you mention; but he is so unwell, I almost fear the fortnight will slip away before I can get him in the right vein. . . . .
“I rejoice to hear of your mother’s amendment: when you can leave her with any satisfaction to yourself, which, as her sister, I think I understand by your letters, is with her, I hope you may soon be able to do, let me know upon what plan you mean to come to town. Your brother proposed your being six months in town and six with your mother, but he did not then know of your poor mother’s illness. By his desire I inquired for a respectable family for you to board with, and from Captain Burney* I heard of one I thought would suit you at that time. He [Dr. S.] particularly desired I would not think of your being with us; not thinking, I conjecture, the house of a single man respectable enough. Your brother gave me most unlimited orders to domineer over you, to be the inspector of all your actions, and to direct and govern you with a stern voice and a high hand; to be, in short, a very elder brother over you. Does not the hearing of this, my meek pupil, make you long to come to London? . . . . . . But to speak seriously, I mean when we mean [meet] that we will lay our heads together, and consult and contrive the best way of making the best girl in the world the
* Captain, afterwards Admiral, James Burney, Southey’s Capitaneus. His name will recur often enough. |
| MISS STODDART’S LOVERS. | 123 |
“Has the partridge season opened any communication between you and William? As I allow you to be imprudent till I see you, I shall expect to hear you have invited him to taste his own birds. Have you scratched him out of your will yet?
“I do long to see you. God bless and comfort you.
