Page:Mary Lamb (Gilchrist 1883).djvu/102

86 am convinced she is a person I could make a friend of; why should not you? We talked freely about you: she seems to have a just notion of your character and will be fond of you if you will let her."

After instancing the misunderstandings between her own mother and aunt already quoted, Mary continues:—

"My aunt and my mother were wholly unlike you and your sister yet, in some degree, theirs is the secret history, I believe, of all sisters-in-law and you will smile when I tell you I think myself the only woman in the world who could live with a brother's wife and make a real friend of her, partly from early observation of the unhappy example I have just given you and partly from a knack I know I have of looking into people's real characters and never expecting them to act out of it—never expecting another to do as I would in the same case. When you leave your mother and say if you never see her again you shall feel no remorse and when you make a jewish bargain with your lover, all this gives me no offence because it is your nature and your temper and I do not expect or want you to be otherwise than you are. I love you for the good that is in you and look for no change.

"But certainly you ought to struggle with the evil that does most easily beset you—a total want of politeness in behaviour, I would say modesty of behaviour but that I should not convey to you my idea of the word modesty; for I certainly do not mean that you want real modesty and what is usually called false or mock modesty I certainly do not wish you to possess; yet I trust you know what I mean well enough. Secresy, tjiough you appear all frankness, is certainly