Were I to attempt to describe my early years, you would laugh at me as an impostor; but the following letter from mamma to a friend after her marriage, will pretty well show you what a poor foolish creature she was; and what a reckless extravagant fellow was my other unfortunate parent.
_To Miss Eliza Hicks, in Gracechurch Street, London._
O Eliza! your Susan is the happiest girl under heaven! My Thomas is an angel! not a tall grenadier-like looking fellow, such as I always vowed I would marry:—on the contrary, he is what the world would call dumpy, and I hesitate not to confess that his eyes have a cast in them. But what then? when one of his eyes is fixed on me, and one on my babe, they are lighted up with an affection which my pen cannot describe, and which, certainly, was never bestowed upon any woman so strongly as upon your happy Susan Stubbs.
When he comes home from shooting, or the farm, if you _could_ see dear Thomas with me and our dear little Bob! as I sit on one knee, and baby on the other, and as he dances us both about. I often wish that we had Sir Joshua, or some great painter, to depict the group; for sure it is the prettiest picture in the whole world, to see three such loving merry people.
Dear baby is the most lovely little creature that _can possibly be_,—the very _image_ of papa; he is cutting his teeth, and the delight of _everybody_. Nurse says, that when he is older, he will get rid of his squint, and his hair will get a _great deal_ less red. Doctor Bates is as kind, and skilful, and attentive as we could desire. Think what a blessing to have had him! Ever since poor baby's birth, it has never had a day of quiet; and he has been obliged to give it from three to four doses every week;—how thankful ought we to be that the _dear thing_ is as well as it is! It got through the measles wonderfully; then it had a little rash; and then a nasty hooping cough; and then a fever, and continual pains in its poor little stomach, crying, poor dear child, from morning till night.
But dear Tom is an excellent nurse; and many and many a night has he had no sleep, dear man! in consequence of the poor little baby. He walks up and down with it _for hours_, singing a kind of song (dear fellow, he has no more voice than a tea-kettle), and bobbing his head backwards and forwards, and looking, in his night-cap and dressing-gown, _so droll_. Oh, Eliza! how you would laugh to see him.