My niece is
certainly of quality! And report has not done her justice.--One more
tune, one more song--By my faith, your voice goes sweetly to your
fingers. 'Slife--I'll thrash my jades," that was his polite phrase,
"when I get home.--Lady Davers, you know not the money they have cost
me to qualify them; and here's a mere baby to them outdoes 'em by a
bar's length, without any expense at all bestowed upon her. Go over
that again--Confound me for a puppy! I lost it by my prating.--Ay,
there you have it! Oh! that I could but dance as well as thou sing'st!
I'd give you a saraband, old as I am."
After supper, we fell into a conversation, of which I must give you
some account, being on a topic that Mr. B. has been blamed for in his
marrying me, and which has stuck by some of his friends, even after
they have, in kindness to me, acquitted him in every other respect;
and that is, _the example he has set to young gentlemen of family and
fortune to marry beneath them_.--It was begun by Sir Jacob, who said,
"I am in love with my new niece, that I am: but still one thing
sticks with me in this affair, which is, what will become of degree
or distinction, if this practice of gentlemen marrying their mothers'
waiting-maids--excuse me, Madam--should come into vogue? Already,
young ladies and young gentlemen are too apt to be drawn away thus,
and disgrace their families.
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