that Hazard house had the only roof in town that could boast of a couple perfectly elegant and perfectly happy. I do not pretend to assert that this declaration was truth; I only say the company then present allowed it to be so.
My lord would not read a single letter—for many were that day brought him—lest it should give a tinge of dissatisfaction that might check the general hilarity. They were all ordered to be laid in the study, and it was agreed that he and Standfast should look them over the next morning.
The whole day being like a smooth sea, which looked the more beautiful for having been a little

ruffled, we will glide over it, as too uniform for any striking remarks, and come to the next, which was a little more agitated.
As soon as breakfast was over, his lordship and Standfast, according to agreement, retired to examine the letters. These were seven in number, and as four of them in some degree relate to this history, I shall insert them, together with the remarks of their examiners. Indeed it was once in my head to have given this whole history through that vehicle, but I considered that making my personages retire to their closets before they disclosed their sentiments would have thrown a frigidity over the business; besides the unavoidable necessity of relating every thing two or three times over, and always partially. Besides I may introduce some characters who cannot write, and others who will not. Mr. Standfast, for instance, would not have been possessed of half the cunning I have given him if any thing could have induced him to disclose his sentiments upon paper.
Upon reflection, therefore, I was determined not to follow a method, however fashionable, by which I must have made villains confide their vices, and young ladies their wishes—which, if they felt delicately, they would find difficult to express at all,

much less in a letter—to their confidants and clerks of the roads.
All such matters considered, I have left these penny-post men in biography to themselves, contented to jog on an old road, where what the prospects want of trimming and regulation, will, I trust, be made up in simple and natural luxuriance. But to the letters under examination.

The letter I now send you is accompanied by one from your son, who is determined to chuse a guardian—being eighteen years of age—unless you intend to do him more justice.
You have withdrawn your protection from him, in favour of your darling Charles, whom the virtuous Mr. Standfast is training in the paths of honour.
I shall forbear to reflect on either