My dear good Lady,

What kind, what generous things, are you pleased to say of your happy Correspondent! And what Reason have I to value myself on such an Advantage as is now before me, if I am capable of improving it as I ought, from a Correspondence with so noble and so admired a Lady! I wish I be not now proud indeed!—To be praised by such a Genius, and by the noble Sister of my honoured Benefactor, whose Favour, next to his own, it was always my chief Ambition to obtain, is what would be enough to fill with Vanity a steadier and a more equal Mind than mine.

I have heard from my late honoured Lady, what a fine Pen her beloved Daughter was Mistress of, when she pleased to take it up: But I never could have had the Presumption, but from your Ladyship's own Motion, to hope to be in any manner the Subject of it, much less to be called your Correspondent.

Indeed, Madam, I am proud, very proud of this Honour, and consider it as such a Heightening to my Pleasures, as only that could give; and I will set about obeying your Ladyship without Reserve.

But permit me, in the first Place, to disclaim any Merit, from my own poor Writings, to that Improvement which your Goodness imputes to me. What I have to boast of that Sort, is owing principally, if it deserves Commendation, to my late excellent Lady. It is hardly to be imagined what Pains her Ladyship took with her poor Servant. Besides making me keep a Book of her Charities dispensed by my Hands, she caused me always to set down, in my Way, the Cases of the Distressed, their Griefs from their Misfortunes, and their Joys in her bountiful Relief; and so I was enter’d early into the various Turns that affected worthy Hearts, and was taught the better to regulate my own, especially by the Help of the fine Observations which my good Lady used to make to me, when I read to her what I wrote.