Chapter XXVI: 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

RACHEL COWLEY’S.

P. S. I am well, quite well, Lucy! my cordial in my bosom! Do not mind a word in this letter. Douglass will triumph. He predicted how it would be; when the wind blew propitiously.