I can no longer resist the inclination I have to know how you go on, how the Waters agree with you, and whether you have escaped colds so as to be able to follow them up? I assure you I am not the only person here who has said every day ‘I wonder how Lady Olivia is’! You have been so much the burden of the Song, that I overheard the little brat the other day singing in a plaintive Note to her doll –

Lady Livy
poor Lady Livy
dear Lady Livy
poor dear Lady Livy!

She went on a long time with this mournful ditty to our no small amusement.

I feel quite thankful that I was enabled to keep us so stoutly while you were with us, as I have fallen back into my natural, that is my bad state ever since. I am however better to day; I fancy I feel more thankful for a day’s ease and a night’s rest than those can do whose days and nights suffer no such interruptions. Yet I am conscious of not feeling half grateful enough for the unnumbered and undeseved [sic] mercies I enjoy.

Have you met with any new books worth reading, or any old ones which make amends for the faults of the new? And have you picked up any new friends worth knowing, or stumbled on any old ones that you would be glad to have escaped? which is the more probable chance of the two.

My love to Miss Sparrow – I trust she is making the best use of those golden days of youth and health by laying /in/ stores of useful knowledge and elegant information; but more especially by laying a solid foundation for her future happiness in both worlds by the daily perusal of some work, which may teach her the wisdom which is from above. The holy Scriptures I know she is in the constant practice of studying