So pleased was I with the young Sorlings, for the
elegance of her works, that I kissed her, and she
made me a courtesy for my condescension; and blushed,
and seemed sensible all over: encouraging, yet
innocently, she adjusted her handkerchief, and looked
towards the door, as much as to say, she would not
tell, were I to kiss her again.
Her eldest sister popt upon her. The conscious
girl blushed again, and looked so confounded, that
I made an excuse for her, which gratified both.
Mrs. Betty, said I, I have been so much pleased with
the neatness of your dairy-works, that I could not
help saluting your sister: you have your share
of merit in them, I am sure—Give me leave——
Good souls!—I like them both—she
courtesied too!—How I love a grateful temper!
O that my Clarissa were but half so acknowledging!
I think I must get one of them to attend my charmer
when she removes—the mother seems to be
a notable woman. She had not best, however, be
too notable: since, were she by suspicion to
give me a face of difficulty to the matter, it would
prepare me for a trial with one or both the daughters.
Allow me a little rhodamantade, Jack—but
really and truly my heart is fixed. I can think
of no creature breathing of the sex, but my Gloriana.
Mr. Lovelace, to John Belford,
ESQ.
[In continuation.]
This is Wednesday; the day that I was to have lost
my charmer for ever to the hideous Solmes! With
what high satisfaction and heart’s-ease can I
now sit down, and triumph over my men in straw at Harlowe-place!
Yet ’tis perhaps best for them, that she got
off as she did. Who knows what consequences
might have followed upon my attending her in; or (if
she had not met me) upon my projected visit, followed
by my myrmidons?
But had I even gone in with her unaccompanied, I think
I had but little reason for apprehension: for
well thou knowest, that the tame spirits which value
themselves upon reputation, and are held within the
skirts of the law by political considerations only,
may be compared to an infectious spider; which will
run into his hole the moment one of his threads is
touched by a finger that can crush him, leaving all
his toils defenceless, and to be brushed down at the
will of the potent invader. While a silly fly,
that has neither courage nor strength to resist, no
sooner gives notice, by its buz and its struggles,
of its being entangled, but out steps the self-circumscribed
tyrant, winds round and round the poor insect, till
he covers it with his bowel-spun toils; and when so
fully secured, that it can neither move leg nor wing,
suspends it, as if for a spectacle to be exulted over:
then stalking to the door of his cell, turns about,
glotes over it at a distance; and, sometimes advancing,
sometimes retiring, preys at leisure upon its vitals.
