Castle Square, Friday (December 9).

Many thanks, my dear Cassandra, to you and Mr. Deedes for your joint¹ and agreeable composition, which took me by surprise this morning. He has certainly great merit as a writer; he does ample justice to his subject, and without being diffuse² is clear and correct; and though I do not[121] mean to compare his epistolary powers with yours, or to give him the same portion of my gratitude³, he certainly has a very pleasing way of winding⁴ up a whole, and speeding truth into the world.

"But all this," as my dear Mrs. Piozzi says, "is flight and fancy and nonsense, for my master has his great casks to mind and I have my little children." It is you, however, in this instance, that have the little children, and I that have the great cask, for we are brewing⁵ spruce beer again; but my meaning really is, that I am extremely foolish in writing all this unnecessary stuff when I have so many matters to write about that my paper will hardly hold it all. Little matters they are, to be sure, but highly important.

In the first place, Miss Curling is actually at Portsmouth, which I was always in hopes would not happen. I wish her no worse, however, than a long and happy abode⁶ there. Here she would probably be dull, and I am sure she would be troublesome.

The bracelets⁷ are in my possession, and everything I could wish them to be. They came with Martha's pelisse, which likewise gives great satisfaction.

Soon after I had closed my last letter to you we were visited by Mrs. Dickens and her sister-in-law, Mrs. Bertie, the wife of a lately made Admiral. Mrs. F. A.,[8] I believe, was their first object, but[122] they put up with us very kindly⁸, and Mrs. D., finding in Miss Lloyd a friend of Mrs. Dundas, had another

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