I thought I might never see her again. After

all,

"What's Hecuba to me, or I to Hecuba?”

My friends laughed and talked louder than the storm, all the way home; I was lost in lofty meditation, and, to

own the truth,

writing this letter in idea; and then I was so glad to find myself at this fireside, with the sweet little girl in my arms.

I am going to bid good night to the moon; the storm is over, the undulating waters are like living light, while the same beams repose so sweetly on the shadowy sides of farseen mountains, that arise in distant isles.

Stood Dido with a willow in her hand

Upon the wild sea bank, and wav'd her love
To come again to Carthage."

Ungrateful cur that he was. Adieu! may you never wave a willow, or spend a good day as idly as I have done this. It is past midnight, and remorse is preying on me. Adieu! again, my dearest.

LETTER VIII.

TO MISS REID.

Oban, May, 1773.

Now, my dear Harriet, I have commenced a bad custom both to you and myself! I write. so minutely, that when I settle and have something else to do, I must needs be concise, and then you will think me careless; but you must not, for my manner of writing to you is so like our old wandering chit-chat, that I fly to it as Lizzy does to her snuff-box, and this so often, that I neglect those I ought to like and attend to, and would attend to, if I did not feel as if I had you always in a corner to run to. I will not write these two days, unless a little matter of fact before breakfast, and a gossipping whisper at bedtime. My taste for solitary amusement, and indifference to the volatile chit-chat of some people, begin to excite much observation.. Shake off the imputation as we please, every

one

one has their own mode of selfishness, and I feel mine to be that of running away to my solitary pleasures. I repent, will mortify myself, and

"Do penance in gay young company."

Midnight.

I am reformned, and amended, but cannot fatigue myself or you with the description of this day; you will find it in Thomson:

“Deceitful, vain, and void, passes the day.”

Why should I speak with peevishness, of good-humoured, harmless people, who show a wish to please me? Why am I not pleased with trifles, when the best of us are doomed to pass great part of our lives in a manner which our own reflections must call trifling? but then I should like to trifle in my own way. I could play half a day with sweet little Anne, or even with a sportive kitten, or puppy: I could gather shells and sea-weed on the shore, or venture my neck for nests, which I would not plunder after finding them; nay, I could talk nonsense as we used to do, and laugh heartily at vagaries of our own

con

contriving. But their nonsense I can't for my life' relish they think it wit, and I can't accredit it as such. Then they think cun

ning wisdom, and mistake folly. Very rural all this!

simplicity for Here is gos

Do not

sipping for you with a witness. think that I indulge myself in the conceit of not caring for any body, unless they have the taste for reading, which great leisure and solitude, in a manner, forced upon me. But I would have people love truth and nature; I would have them look a little into the great book which their Maker has left open to every body. I would have the rising and setting sun, the blossoming trees and opening flowers, give them the same pleasure, which many taste, without knowing their alphabet. O! when, or where shall I see another Harriet, uncultured and untaught, yet awake to all that is grand or beautiful in nature, all that is excellent or desirable in knowledge-wise intuitive sense of what is delicate and proper, is worth volumes of instruction! The more I know of others, the more I regret you; and the best use I

ever could make of the knowledge which I have accidentally acquired, would be to impress it on the fair tablet of your spotless mind. Good night, my dear; I am neither very well nor very easy. I have got cold in these meadowy traverses. My father and mother go away to-morrow. Were it not for the dear old man, and his little girl, and his library, I would go too. Write to me here, and never mind incorrectness; you will daily improve; or, though you should not,

"Thou hast no faults, or I no faults can spy, Thou art all beauty, or all blindness L."

LETTER IX.

am.

TO MISS REID.

Fort William, May 12, 1773.

BE astonished, Oh! Hriet, for here I Ask why I am here, and I can only tell you it was owing to the strangest caprice. Yet, so it is, and you know I do not use to

be