Were this vile Sir Hargrave out of my head, I could satisfy myself about twenty and twenty things, that now and then I want to know.

Miss Jervois behaved very discreetly. With what pleasure did she hang on every word that fell from the lips of her guardian! I thought more than once of Swift’s Cadenus and Vanessa. Poor girl! how I should pity her, were she insensibly to suffer her gratitude to lead her to be in love with her bene-factor! Indeed, I pity everybody who is hopelessly in love.

Now don’t shake your head, my uncle! Did I not always pity Mr. Orme, and Mr. Fowler? You know I did, Lucy.

Miss Jervois had a smile ready for every one; but it was not an implicit, a childish smile. It had distinction in it; and shewed intelligence. Upon the whole, she said little, and heard all that was said with attention: and hence I pronounce her a very discreet young lady.

But I thought to have done with the men first; and here is Mr. Grandison hardly mentioned; who, yet, in his own opinion, was not the last of the men at table.

Mr. Grandison is a man of middling stature; not handsome in my eyes; but so near being handsome, that he may be excused, when one knows him, for thinking himself so; because he is liable to make greater mistakes than that.

He dresses very gaily too. He is at the head of the fashion, as it seems, he thinks; but, however, is one of the jirst in it, be it what it will. He is a great frequenter of the drawing-room; of all manner of public spectacles; a leader of the taste at a new play, or opera. He dances, he sings, he laughs; and values himself on all three qualifications: and yet certainly ha3 sense; but is not likely to improve it much; since he seems to be so much afraid of suffering in the consequence he thinks himself of, that whenever Sir Charles applies himself to him, upon any of his levities, though but by the eye, his consciousness, however mild the look, makes him shew an uneasiness at the instant: he reddens, sits in pain; calls for favour by his eyes and his quivering lips; and has, notwithstanding, a smile ready to turn into a laugh, in order to lessen his own sensi-bility, should he be likely to suffer in the opinion of the company: but every motion shews his consciousness of inferiority to the man, of whose smile or animadversions he is so very apprehensive.

What a captious, what a supercilious husband, to a woman who should happen to have a stronger mind than his, would Mr. Grandison make! But he va-lues himself upon his having preserved his liberty.