My dear Lady G.,
The papers you have mislaid, as to the conversation between me and
the young ladies, relations of Mrs. Towers, and Lady Anne Arthur, in
presence of these two last-named ladies, Mrs. Brooks, and the worthy
dean, and Miss L. (of which, in order to perfect your kind collection
of my communications you request another copy) contained as follows.
I first stated, that I had seen these three ladies twice or thrice
before, as visitors, at their kinswomen's houses so that they and I
were not altogether strangers to one another: and my two neighbours
acquainted me with their respective tastes and dispositions, and their
histories preparatory to this visit, to the following effects:
That MISS STAPYLTON is over-run with the love of poetry and romance,
and delights in flowery language and metaphorical flourishes: is about
eighteen, wants not either sense or politeness; and has read herself
into a vein, more amorous (that was Mrs. Towers's word) than discreet.
Has extraordinary notions of a _first sight_ love; and gives herself
greater liberties, with a pair of fine eyes (in hopes to make sudden
conquests in pursuance of that notion), than is pretty in her sex
and age; which makes those who know her not, conclude her bold and
forward; and is more than suspected, with a mind thus prepared for
instantaneous impressions, to have experienced the argument to her
own disadvantage, and to be _struck_ by (before she had _stricken_)
a gentleman, whom her friends think not at all worthy of her, and
to whom she was making some indiscreet advances, under the name of
PHILOCLEA to PHILOXENUS, in a letter which she entrusted to a servant
of the family, who, discovering her design, prevented her indiscretion
for that time.
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