The Ayrshire Legatees

LETTER XIX

Miss Rachel Pringle to Miss Isabella Tod

LONDON.

MY DEAR BELL--How delusive are the flatteries of fortune! The wealth

that has been showered upon us, beyond all our hopes, has brought no

pleasure to my heart, and I pour my unavailing sighs for your absence,

when I would communicate the cause of my unhappiness. Captain Sabre has

been most assiduous in his attentions, and I must confess to your

sympathising bosom, that I do begin to find that he has an interest in

mine. But my mother will not listen to his proposals, nor allow me to

give him any encouragement, till the fatal legacy is settled. What can

be her motive for this, I am unable to divine; for the captain's fortune

is far beyond what I could ever have expected without the legacy, and

equal to all I could hope for with it. If, therefore, there is any doubt

of the legacy being paid, she should allow me to accept him; and if there

is none, what can I do better? In the meantime, we are going about

seeing the sights; but the general mourning is a great drawback on the

splendour of gaiety. It ends, however, next Sunday; and then the ladies,

like the spring flowers, will be all in full blossom. I was with the

Argents at the opera on Saturday last, and it far surpassed my ideas of

grandeur. But the singing was not good--I never could make out the end

or the beginning of a song, and it was drowned with the violins; the

scenery, however, was lovely; but I must not say a word about the

dancers, only that the females behaved in a manner so shocking, that I

could scarcely believe it was possible for the delicacy of our sex to do.

They are, however, all foreigners, who are, you know, naturally of a

licentious character, especially the French women.

We have taken an elegant house in Baker Street, where we go on Monday

next, and our own new carriage is to be home in the course of the week.

All this, which has been done by the advice of Mrs. Argent, gives my

mother great uneasiness, in case anything should yet happen to the

legacy. My brother, however, who knows the law better than her, only

laughs at her fears, and my father has found such a wonderful deal to do

in religion here, that he is quite delighted, and is busy from morning to

night in writing letters, and giving charitable donations. I am soon to

be no less busy, but in another manner. Mrs. Argent has advised us to

get in accomplished masters for me, so that, as soon as we are removed

into our own local habitation, I am to begin with drawing and music, and

the foreign languages. I am not, however, to learn much of the piano;

Mrs. A. thinks it would take up more time than I can now afford; but I am

to be cultivated in my singing, and she is to try if the master that

taught Miss Stephens has an hour to spare--and to use her influence to

persuade him to give it to me, although he only receives pupils for

perfectioning, except they belong to families of distinction.