tears. It was impossible, in the character of so good a woman, not to think of my own mamma; and I could not help, on the remembrance, joining my tears with theirs.
Miss Jervois also wept, not only from tenderness of nature, and sympathy, but, as she owned, from regret, that she had not the same reason to rejoice in a living mother, as we had to remember affectionately the departed.
What I have written, and shall farther write, to the disadvantage of Sir Thomas Grandison, I gather'd from what was dropt by one Lady, and by the other, at different times; for it was beautiful to observe with what hesitation and reluctancy they mentioned any of his failings, with what pleasure his good qualities; heightening the one, and extenuating the other. O my Lucy, how would their hearts have overflowed in his praises, had they had such a faultless father, and excellent man, as was my father! Sweet is the remembrance of good parents to good children!
Lady Grandison brought a great fortune to Sir Thomas. He had a fine poetical vein, which he was fond of cultivating. Tho' his fortune was so ample, it was his person, and his verses, that won the Lady from several competitors. He had not, however, her judgment. He was a poet; and I have heard my grandfather say, that to be a poet, requires an heated imagination, which often runs away with the judgment.
This Lady took the consent of all her friends in her choice; but here seemed an hint to drop from Lady L. that they consented, because it was her choice; for Sir Thomas, from the day he enter'd upon his estate, set out in a way that every-body concluded would diminish it.
He made, however, a kind husband, as it is called,

His good-sense and his politeness, and the pride he took to be thought one of the best-bred men in England, secured her complaisant treatment. But Lady Grandison had qualities that deserved one of the best and tenderest of men. Her eye and her ear had certainly misled her. I believe a woman, who chooses a man whom every-body admires, if the man be not good, must expect that he will have calls and inclinations, that will make him think the character of a domestic man beneath him.
She endeavoured, at setting out, to engage his companionableness—shall I call it? She was fond of her husband. He had reason to be, and