"The occasion will be principally, that we expect, very soon, Lord and
Lady Davers, who propose to tarry here a fortnight at least; and after
that, the advanced season will carry us to London, where Mr. B.
has taken a house for his winter residence, and in order to attend
parliament: a service he says, which he has been more deficient in
hitherto, than he can either answer to his constituents, or to his own
conscience; for though he is but one, yet if any good motion should be
lost by one, every absent member, who is independent, has to reproach
himself with the consequence of the loss of that good which might
otherwise redound to the commonwealth. And besides, he says, such
excuses as he could make, _every one_ might plead; and then public
affairs might as well be left to the administration, and no parliament
be chosen.
"See you, my dear Miss Darnford, from the humble cottager, what a
public person your favourite friend is grown! How easy is it for a
bold mind to look forward, and, perhaps, forgetting what she was, now
she imagines she has a stake in the country, takes upon herself to be
as important, as significant, as if, like my dear Miss Darnford, she
had been born to it!
"Well; but may I not ask, whether, if the mountain cannot come to
Mahomet, Mahomet will not come to the mountain? Since Lady Davers's
visit is so uncertain as to its beginning and duration, and so great
a favour as I am to look upon it, and really shall, it being her first
visit to _me_:--and since we must go and take possession of our London
residence, why can't Sir Simon spare to us the dear lady whom he could
use hardly, and whose attendance (though he is indeed entitled to all
her duty) he did not, just in that instance, quite so much deserve?
"'Well, but after all, Sir Simon,' would I say, if I had been in
presence at his peevish hour, 'you are a fine gentleman, are you not?
to take such a method to shew your good daughter, that because she did
not come _soon enough_ to you, she came _too soon_! And did ever papa
before you put a _good book_ (for such I doubt not it was, _because_
you were in affliction, though so little affected by its precepts) to
such a _bad use_? As parents' examples are so prevalent, suppose your
daughter had taken it, and flung it at her sister; Miss Nancy at her
waiting-maid; and so it had gone through the family; would it not have
been an excuse for every one to say, that the father, and head of the
family had set the example?
"'You almost wish, my dear Miss tells me, that I would undertake
_you_!--This is very good of you.
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