In Answer to the preceding.

How you overwhelm me with your Goodness, my dearest Lady, in every Word of your last welcome Letter, is beyond my Power to express! How nobly has your Lady contrived, in your ever-valu’d Present, to encourage a doubting and apprehensive Mind! And how does it contribute to my Joy andmy Glory, that I am deemed by the noble Sister ofmy best Beloved, not wholly unworthy of being the humble Means to continue, and, perhaps, to perpetuate, a Family so antient and so honourable!——

This, Madam, when I contemplate, and look upon what I was—What can I say!—How shall I express the Sense of the Honour, done me!—And when, skipping over for a few Moments, the other engaging Particulars in your Ladyship's Letter, I come to the last charming Paragraph, I amdoubly affected to see myself seemingly upbraided, but so politely imbolden’d to assume an Appellation, that otherwise I hardly dar’d to assume.

I—humble I—who never had a Sister before!—To find one now in Lady Davers!OMadam, you, and only you, can teach me Words fit to express the Joy and the Gratitude that fill my delighted Heart!—But thus much I am taught, and thus much I can say, tho’ at a Loss for other Words, that there is something more than the Low-born can imagine in Birth and Education. This is so evident in your Lady's Actions, Words, and Manner, that it strikes one with a becoming Reverence; and we look up with Awe to a Condition we emulate in vain, when raised by partial Favour, like what I have found; and are confounded, when we see Grandeur of Soul join’d with Grandeur of Birth and Condition; and a noble Lady acting thus nobly, as Lady Davers acts.

My best Wishes, and a thousand Blessings, attend your Ladyship in all you undertake! And I am persuaded the latter will, and a Peace and Satisfaction of Mind incomparably to be preferr’d to whatever else this World can afford, in the new Regulations, which you, and my dear Lady Countess, have set on Foot in your Families: And when I can have the Happiness to know what they are, I shall, I am confident, greatly improve my own Methods by them.