Read it through once

A pathetic and tragic letter! At last the scales had dropped from her eyes. And yet, though the letter is, as it stands, an implicit condemnation of her father’s laziness, it is overburdened with affectionate praise of him and a catalogue of virtues in all of which his life had proved him notably and sadly deficient. Dr. Mitford, regenerated, as presented by his daughter, cuts a sorry figure; for him the art of “turning over a new leaf” was lost, if indeed he ever practised it. Proof of this was forthcoming in the next letter addressed to the same correspondent and written three months later! “I hasten my dear and kind friend, to reply to your very welcome letter. I am quite well now, and if not as hopeful as I used to be, yet less anxious, and far less depressed than I ever expected to feel again. This is merely the influence of the scenery, the flowers, the cool yet pleasant season, and the absence of all literary society; for our prospects are not otherwise changed. _My dear father, relying with a blessed sanguineness on my poor endeavours, has not, I believe, even inquired for a situation_; and I do not press the matter, though I anxiously wish it, being willing to give one more trial to the theatre. If I could but get the assurance of earning for my dear father and mother a humble competence I should be the happiest creature in the world. But for these dear ties, I should never write another line, but go out in some situation as other destitute women do. It seems to me, however, my duty to try a little longer; the more especially as I am sure separation would be felt by all of us to be the greatest of all evils.