My Dear Madam,--Although it is so many years since I profited by your delightful and invaluable instructions, yet I have ever retained the FONDEST and most reverential regard for Miss Pinkerton, and DEAR Chiswick.I hope your health is GOOD.The world and the cause of education cannot afford to lose Miss Pinkerton for MANY MANYYEARS.When my friend, Lady Fuddleston, mentioned that her dear girls required an instructress (I am too poor to engage a governess for mine, but was I not educated at Chiswick?)--"Who," I exclaimed, "can we consult but the excellent, the incomparable Miss Pinkerton?" In a word, have you, dear madam, any ladies on your list, whose services might be made available to my kind friend and neighbour? I assure you she will take no governess BUT OF YOUR CHOOSING.
My dear husband is pleased to say that he likes EVERYTHING WHICH COMES FROM MISS PINKERTON'SSCHOOL.How I wish I could present him and my beloved girls to the friend of my youth, and the ADMIRED of the great lexicographer of our country! If you ever travel into Hampshire, Mr.Crawley begs me to say, he hopes you will adorn our RURAL RECTORY with your presence.'Tis the humble but happy home ofYour affectionate Martha CrawleyP.S.Mr.Crawley's brother, the baronet, with whom we are not, alas! upon those terms of UNITY in which it BECOMES BRETHREN TO DWELL, has a governess for his little girls, who, I am told, had the good fortune to be educated at Chiswick.I hear various reports of her;and as I have the tenderest interest in my dearest little nieces, whom I wish, in spite of family differences, to see among my own children--and as I long to be attentive to ANY PUPIL OF YOURS--do, my dear Miss Pinkerton, tell me the history of this young lady, whom, for YOUR SAKE, I am most anxious to befriend.--M.C.
Miss Pinkerton to Mrs.Bute Crawley.
Johnson House, Chiswick, Dec.18--.
Dear Madam,--I have the honour to acknowledge your polite communication, to which I promptly reply.
'Tis most gratifying to one in my most arduous position to find that my maternal cares have elicited a responsive affection; and to recognize in the amiable Mrs.Bute Crawley my excellent pupil of former years, the sprightly and accomplished Miss Martha MacTavish.I am happy to have under my charge now the daughters of many of those who were your contemporaries at my establishment --what pleasure it would give me if your own beloved young ladies had need of my instructive superintendence!
Presenting my respectful compliments to Lady Fuddleston, I have the honour (epistolarily) to introduce to her ladyship my two friends, Miss Tuffin and Miss Hawky.
Either of these young ladies is PERFECTLY QUALIFIED to instruct in Greek, Latin, and the rudiments of Hebrew;in mathematics and history; in Spanish, French, Italian, and geography; in music, vocal and instrumental; in dancing, without the aid of a master; and in the elements of natural sciences.In the use of the globes both are proficients.In addition to these Miss Tuffin, who is daughter of the late Reverend Thomas Tuffin (Fellow of Corpus College, Cambridge), can instruct in the Syriac language, and the elements of Constitutional law.
But as she is only eighteen years of age, and of exceedingly pleasing personal appearance, perhaps this young lady may be objectionable in Sir Huddleston Fuddleston's family.
Miss Letitia Hawky, on the other hand, is not personally well-favoured.She is-twenty-nine; her face is much pitted with the small-pox.She has a halt in her gait, red hair, and a trifling obliquity of vision.Both ladies are endowed with EVERY MORAL AND RELIGIOUSVIRTUE.Their terms, of course, are such as their accomplishments merit.With my most grateful respects to the Reverend Bute Crawley, I have the honour to be,Dear Madam,Your most faithful and obedient servant, Barbara Pinkerton.
P.S.The Miss Sharp, whom you mention as governess to Sir Pitt Crawley, Bart., M.P., was a pupil of mine, and I have nothing to say in her disfavour.
Though her appearance is disagreeable, we cannot control the operations of nature: and though her parents were disreputable (her father being a painter, several times bankrupt, and her mother, as I have since learned, with horror, a dancer at the Opera); yet her talents are considerable, and I cannot regret that I received her OUT OF CHARITY.My dread is, lest the principles of the mother--who was represented to me as a French Countess, forced to emigrate in the late revolutionary horrors;but who, as I have since found, was a person of the very lowest order and morals--should at any time prove to be HEREDITARY in the unhappy young woman whom Itook as AN OUTCAST.But her principles have hitherto been correct (I believe), and I am sure nothing will occur to injure them in the elegant and refined circle of the eminent Sir Pitt Crawley.
Miss Rebecca Sharp to Miss Amelia Sedley.