have hoped for or claimed from so late an acquaintance: yet his friendship is testified by actions, not by protestations; for the modesty of Mr. Howard's nature is such, that our expressions of gratitude never fail to embarrass and distress him; and he seems to regard the trouble he receives, as a trust, the faithful discharge of which is a duty too indispensible to appear meritorious.
His countenance—(you see I go regularly through the list of your interrogatories)

—without being what one can pronounce handsome, is sensible, manly, and interesting, with an air of mildness which prepossesses you at first sight in his favour, and an expression which of all others is the most desirable—the look of a worthy honest character. He would possess also much the appearance of a man of fashion, or rather of a man who has been accustomed to elegant and polished society, did not a certain degree of diffidence and modesty shew that he made not the grand tour early enough in life to acquire that ease which an introduction into foreign company at a youthful period generally bestows: but on this head I can only judge from comparing him with some of the Parisian beaux who occasionally frequented the chateau de Clarence, and who, however inferior to Mr. Howard in point of understanding, I must acknowledge were his superiors in address.

Fortune has been, alas! as sparing as nature seems to have been prodigal of her gifts. Her avarice is by no means apparent in the figure Mr. Howard makes in this country; but he confessed to my father that frugality alone enabled him to conceal it. As to his age—(pray do you imagine that my father would have consigned us to the care of a man of five and twenty?) Mr. Howard adds, I dare say, twenty years more to that gay season of life. Time has not, it is true, imprinted any traces in his face which one could wish spared, for they denote benevolence rather than years: he looks considerably younger than he is; and retains that spirit in his eye which in his youth would have been probably termed fire, though blended with infinite sweetness. Thus our guardian, you find, is not a giddy insinuating youth, who might have one day made Fanny and I pull caps; but in fact a plain, worthy, middle-aged

man, whose attachment is that of a parent not of an admirer.
I will freely confess to you however I have sometimes been led to suspect, from, his behaviour, that he wished to render himself particularly agreeable to me, and that he originally