She tapped my cheek--Take that, Harriet, for making a Biddy of me. I
believe, if you have not joy, you have comfort, in your severity.
My heart as well as my cheek glowed at the praises the earl and the lady
both joined in (with a fervor that was creditable to their own hearts) of
Sir Charles Grandison, while they told us what this man, and that woman
of quality or consideration said of him. Who would not be good? What is
life without reputation? Do we not wish to be remembered with honour
after death? And what a share of it has this excellent man in his life!
--May nothing, for the honour-sake of human nature, to which he is so
great an ornament, ever happen to tarnish it!
They made me a hundred fine compliments. I could not but be pleased at
standing well in their opinion: but, believe me, my dear, I did not enjoy
their praises of me, as I did those they gave him. Indeed, I had the
presumption, from the approbation given to what they said of him by my
own heart, to imagine myself a sharer in them, though not in his merits.
Oh, Lucy! ought there not to have been a relation between us, since what
I have said, from what I found in myself on hearing him praised, is a
demonstration of a regard for him superior to the love of self?
Adieu, my Lucy. I know I have all your prayers.
Adieu, my dear!
LETTER VI
MISS BYRON.
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