--But is not this the language of
every fond mamma?
Miss Goodwin is highly delighted now with my sweet little Pamela, and
says, she shall be her sister indeed! "For, Madam," said she, "Miss
is a beauty!--And we see no French beauties like Master Davers and
Miss."--"Beauty! my dear," said I; "what is beauty, if she be not
a good girl? Beauty is but a specious, and, as it may happen, a
dangerous recommendation, a mere skin-deep perfection; and if, as she
grows up, she is not as good as Miss Goodwin, she shall be none of my
girl."
What adds to my pleasure, my dear friend, is to see them both so well
got over the small-pox. It has been as happy for them, as it was for
their mamma and her Billy, that they had it under so skilful and kind
a manager in that distemper, as my dear mother. I wish if it please
God, it was as happily over with my little pretty Frenchman.
Every body is surprised to see what the past two years have done for
Miss Goodwin and my Billy.--O, my dear friend, they are both of them
almost--nay, quite, I think, for their years, all that I wish them
to be. In order to make them keep their French, which Miss so well
speaks, and Billy so prettily prattles, I oblige them, when they
are in the nursery, to speak nothing else: but at table, except on
particular occasions, when French may be spoken, they are to speak
in English; that is, when they do speak: for I tell them, that little
masters must only ask questions for information, and say--"Yes,"
or--"No," till their papas or mammas permit them to speak; nor little
ladies neither, till they are sixteen; for--"My dear loves," cry I,
"you would not speak before you know _how_; and knowledge is obtained
by _hearing_, and not by _speaking_.
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