"What on earth makes you fancy me unwell? You know I am never
unwell. And as to your nursing me--when has there ever been any
need for it?

"You must positively learn patience. I have been absent a week or
so, and you talk of coming down here and haunting the house! Such
ghosts as you meet with strange treatment when they go about
unprotected, let me give you warning. You have my full permission
to walk out in the Parks for exercise. I think you are bound to do
it, for your health's sake.

"Pray discontinue that talk about the alteration in your looks. You
must learn that you are no longer a child. Cease to write like a
child. If people stare at you, as you say, you are very well aware
it is not because you are becoming plain. You do not mean it, I
know; but there is a disingenuousness in remarks of this sort that
is to me exceedingly distasteful. Avoid the shadow of hypocrisy.
Women are subject to it--and it is quite innocent, no doubt. I
won't lecture you.

"My cousin Algernon is here with me. He has not spoken of your
sister. Your fears in that direction are quite unnecessary. He is
attached to a female cousin of ours, a very handsome person, witty,
and highly sensible, who dresses as well as the lady you talk about
having seen one day in Wrexby Church. Her lady's-maid is a
Frenchwoman, which accounts for it. You have not forgotten the
boulevards?

"I wish you to go on with your lessons in French. Educate yourself,
and you will rise superior to these distressing complaints. I