This, as well
as I understand, is to be the substance of my information.
He makes me write, but I do not know what else is to
be communicated, except this said visit to Portsmouth,
and these two said walks, and his introduction to
your family, especially to a fair sister of yours, a fine
girl of fifteen, who was of the party on the ramparts,
taking her first lesson, I presume, in love. I have
not time for writing much, but it would be out of place
if I had, for this is to be a mere letter of business,
penned for the purpose of conveying necessary information,
which could not be delayed without risk of evil. My dear,
dear Fanny, if I had you here, how I would talk to you!
You should listen to me till you were tired, and advise
me till you were still tired more; but it is impossible
to put a hundredth part of my great mind on paper,
so I will abstain altogether, and leave you to guess what
you like. I have no news for you. You have politics,
of course; and it would be too bad to plague you with
the names of people and parties that fill up my time.
I ought to have sent you an account of your cousin's
first party, but I was lazy, and now it is too long ago;
suffice it, that everything was just as it ought to be,
in a style that any of her connexions must have been
gratified to witness, and that her own dress and manners did
her the greatest credit.
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