He went away with a laugh, leaving me to
add this to the other little things the counsellor already knew of his
plausible neighbour.
And now, my dear mother, I found sufficient to reconcile me to all
my follies; for here I spent three whole days. The counsellor had
two sweet girls to his daughters, who played enchantingly on the
harpsichord; and yet it was but a melancholy pleasure I felt the first
time I heard them: for that being the first time also that either of
them had touched the instrument since their mother's death, I saw
the tears in silence trickle down their father's cheeks. I every day
endeavoured to go away, but every day was pressed and obliged to stay.
On my going, the counsellor offered me his purse, with a horse and
servant to convey me home; but the latter I declined, and only took a
guinea to bear my necessary expenses on the road.
TO ROBERT BRYANTON
_In Scotland_
Edinburgh, 26 _Sept._ 1753
MY DEAR BOB,
How many good excuses (and you know I was ever good at an excuse)
might I call up to vindicate my past shameful silence! I might tell
how I wrote a long letter on my first coming hither, and seem vastly
angry at my not receiving an answer; I might allege that business
(with business you know I was always pestered) had never given me
time to finger a pen--but I suppress those and twenty more equally
plausible, and as easily invented, since they might be attended with
a slight inconvenience of being known to be lies.
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