I could easily carry on a correspondence with my sisters, were they to be very earnest about it: but then it must be a correspondence: the writing must not be all of one side. Do they think I should not be equally pleased to hear what they are about, from time to time; and what, occasionally, their senti-ments are upon persons and things? If it fall in your way, and you think it not a mere temporary wish (for young ladies often wish and think no more of the matter); then propose the condition But, caution them, that the moment I discover, that they are less frank, and more reserved than I am, there will be an end of the correspondence. My three sisters are most amiably frank, for women But thus chal-lenged, dare they enter the lists, upon honour, with a man, abrother, upon equal terms? () no! They dare not. It is not in women to be unreserved in some points; and (to be impartial) perhaps they should not: yet, surely, there is now-and-then a man, a brother, to be met with, who would be the more grateful for the confidence reposed in him.

Were this proposal to be accepted, I could write to them many of the things that I communicate to you. I have but few secrets. I only wish to keep from relations so dear to me, things that could not possibly yield them pleasure. I am sure 1 could trust to your judgment, the passages that might be read to them from my letters to you.

Sometimes, indeed, I love to divert myself with Charlotte’s humorous curiosity; for she seems, as I told her lately, to love to suppose secrets, where there are none, for a compliment to her own sagacity, when she thinks she has found them out; and I love at such times to see her puzzled, and at a fault, as a punishment for her declining to speak out.

You have told me heretofore, in excuse for the distance, which my txvo elder sisters observe to their brother, when 1 have complained of it to you, that it proceeded from awe, from reverence for him. But why should there be that awe, that reverence? Sure-ly, my dear friend, if this is spontaneous, and invin — cible, in them, there must be some fault in ray be haviour, some seeming want of freedom in my man — ner, with which you will not acquaint me: it is otherwise impossible, that between brothers and sis-ters, where the love is not doubted on either side, Euch a distance should subsist. You must consult them upon it, and get them to explain themselves on this subject to you; and when they have done so, tell rrie of my fault, and I will endeavour to render myself more agreeable (more familiar, shall I say?) to them. But I will not by any means excuse them, if they give me cause to think, that the distance is owing to the will and the power I have been blessed with to do my duty by them. What would this be, but indirectly to declare, that once they expected not justice from their brother? But no more of this subject at present. I am impatient to be with you all at Colnebrook; you cannot think hovo impatient. Self-denial is a very hard doctrine to be learned, my good Dr. Bartlett. So, in some cases, is it found to be, by your