208 A Century of Family Letters [CHAP, xv 



I think you will wish to know how I like my two little girla 

 now that I look with a fresh eye upon them. I think you 

 and my kind Sismondi have done them good, but I don't 

 perceive any marks of spoilation that I rather expected 

 from both your kindness. I perceive that they converse 

 with much more ease than they did, and are quite as un- 

 affected. Emma is a little bronzed, but Fanny is one degree 

 nearer prettiness than she was ; but I hope she will never 

 make the mistake of thinking that she is pretty. I must 

 give you the same caution that you did to me when they 

 were with you, which was, not to notice any of my remarks 

 upon themselves ; for they would think it hard to be debarred 

 from any part of your letters, and you know how remarks 

 get strength by repetition. 



Harriet [Surtees]'s income will be too small to allow her 

 to keep house comfortably, but her gentle, cheerful and 

 accommodating disposition will always make her company 

 precious to us all. She has only to chuse where she will be. 

 Her modest docility is so striking that it almost makes one 

 afraid to propose anything to her, for fear of her doing 

 what she would rather not do. 



Sir James Mackintosh to his brother-in-law 



John Allen. 



AMPTHILL PARK, 3 Dec., 1827. 



I passed three months at Maer most agreeably in all that 

 depended on the Rulers. Before I went I sometimes sus- 

 pected that you had all exaggerated the Excellencies of your 

 eldest sister, without going quite so far as to suppose that 

 she was a graven image whom you had set up to fall down 

 before and worship; but I now adopt your Worship. I 

 never saw any other person whose acts of civility or friend- 

 ship depended so little on Rule or Habit, and were so con- 

 stantly refreshed from the Wellhead of Kindness with the 

 Infusions of which they seemed to sparkle. Her benignity 

 is indeed most graceful. I used to rally her on the gentlest 

 mistress in England having the noisiest household. Both 



