"Thy mother and thyself at a distance from me--and what can
compensate for such a destitution? For God's sake persuade her to come
and fix in England! for life is too short to waste in separation;
and while she lives in one country and I in another, many people will
suppose it proceeds from choice"--a supposition, he seems to imply,
which even my scrupulously discreet conduct in her absence scarcely
suffices to refute. "Besides"--a word in which there is here almost
as much virtue as in an "if"--"I want thee near me, thou child and
darling of my heart. I am in a melancholy mood, and my Lydia's eyes
will smart with weeping when I tell her the cause that just now
affects me." And then his sensibilities brim over, and into his
daughter's ear he pours forth his lamentations over the loss of her
mother's rival. "I am apprehensive the dear friend I mentioned in my
last letter is going into a decline. I was with her two days ago, and
I never beheld a being so altered. She has a tender frame, and looks
like a drooping lily, for the roses are fled from her cheeks. I can
never see or talk to this incomparable woman without bursting into
tears.
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