is to me that she associates with gentlemen s daughters no one i apprehend will deny she is superior to mr martin whoever might be her parents said mr whoever may have had the charge of her it does not appear to have been any part of their plan to introduce her into what you would call good society after receiving a very indifferent education she is left in mrs s hands to shift as she can � to move in short in mrs s to have mrs s acquaintance her friends evidently thought this good enough for her and it was good enough she desired nothing better herself till you chose to turn her into a friend her mind had no for her own set nor any ambition beyond it she was as happy as possible with the in the summer she had no sense of superiority then if she has it now you have given it you have been no friend to smith robert martin would never have proceeded so far if he had not felt persuaded of her not being to him i know him well he has too much real feeling to address any woman on the hap hazard of selfish passion and as to conceit he is the farthest from it of any man i know depend upon it he had encouragement it was most convenient to not to make a direct reply to this assertion she chose rather to take up her own line of the subject again you are a very warm friend to mr martin but as i said before are unjust to s claims to marry well are not so contemptible as you represent them she is not a clever girl but she has better sense than you are aware of and does not deserve to have her understanding spoken of so that point however and supposing her to be as you describe her only pretty and good natured let me tell you that in the degree she possesses them they are not trivial to the world in general for she is in fact a beautiful girl and must be thought so by ninety nine people out of a hundred and till it appears that men are much more philosophic on the subject of beauty they are generally supposed till they do fall in love with well informed minds instead of handsome faces a girl with such loveliness as has a certainty of being ad and sought after of having the power of choosing from among many consequently a claim to be nice her good nature too is not so very slight a claim as it does real thorough sweetness of temper and manner a very humble opinion of herself and a great readiness to be pleased with other people i am very much mistaken if your sex in general would not think such beauty and such temper the highest claims a woman could possess my word to hear you the reason you have is almost enough to make me think so too better be without sense than it as you do to be sure cried she i know that is the feeling of you all i know that such a girl as is exactly what every man delights in � what at once his senses and his judgment oh may pick and choose were you yourself ever to marry she is the very woman for you and is she at seventeen just entering into life just beginning to be known to be wondered at because she does not accept the first offer she receives no � pray let her have time to look about her i have always thought it a very foolish intimacy said mr presently though i have kept my thoughts to myself but i now perceive that it will be a very unfortunate one for you will puff her up with such ideas of her own beauty and of what she has a claim to that in a little while nobody within her reach will be good enough for her vanity working on a weak head produces every sort of mischief nothing so easy as for a young lady to raise her expectations too high miss smith may not find offers of marriage flow in so fast though she is a very pretty girl men of sense whatever you may choose to say do not want silly wives men of family would not be very fond of connecting themselves with a girl of such obscurity � and most prudent men would be afraid of the inconvenience and disgrace they might be involved in when the mystery of her came to be revealed let her marry robert martin and she is safe respectable and happy forever but if you encourage her to expect to marry greatly and teach her to be satisfied with nothing less than a man of consequence and large fortune she may be a parlor at mrs s all the rest of her life � or at least for smith is a girl who will marry somebody or other till she grow desperate and is glad to catch at the old s son we think so very differently on this point mr that there can be no use in it we shall only be making each other more angry but as to my letting her marry martin it is impossible she has refused him and so decidedly i think as must prevent any second application she must abide by the evil of having refused him whatever it may be and as to the refusal itself i will not pretend to say that i might not influence her a little but i assure you there was very little for me or for anybody to do his appearance is so much against him and his manner so bad that if she ever were disposed to favor him she is not now i can imagine that before she 