University of Virginia Library

May 10.—

You cannot imagine, my Cecilia, how happy I think myself, after such a hurrying winter as I have had, to find ;myself once more restored to my favourite pleasures, the calm delights of solitude. Arnold-abbey seems a paradise to me now.

Lady Grimston shewed me a specimen of her humour this morning, in talking of the widow Arnold. She said she was

an harlot, that having already disgraced the family, now wanted to beggar them; but that if Mr. Arnold did not make an example of her, she would never own him for a kinsman.

My chearful old dean says, he is now completely happy, having lived to see his daughter married (while we were in town) very much to his and her satisfaction. I am heartily glad of it; neither am I sorry (for her sake) that she has left the country.