Then, with still folded hands, and fresh streaming eyes, I was her blessed Lovelace; and she would thank me with her latest breath if I would permit her to make that preference, or free her from farther indignities.

I sat suspended for a moment:  by my soul, thought I, thou art, upon full proof, an angel and no woman! still, however, close clasping her to my bosom, as I raised her from her knees, she again slid through my arms, and dropped upon them.—­’See, Mr. Lovelace!—­Good God! that I should live to see this hour, and to bear this treatment!—­See at your feet a poor creature, imploring your pity; who, for your sake, is abandoned of all the world.  Let not my father’s curse thus dreadfully operate! be not you the inflicter, who have been the cause of it:  but spare me, I beseech you, spare me!—­for how have I deserved this treatment from you? for your own sake, if not for my sake, and as you would that God Almighty, in your last hour, should have mercy upon you, spare me!’

What heart but must have been penetrated!

I would again have raised the dear suppliant from her knees; but she would not be raised, till my softened mind, she said, had yielded to her prayer, and bid her rise to be innocent.

Rise then, my angel! rise, and be what you are, and all you wish to be! only pronounce me pardoned for what has passed, and tell me you will continue to look upon me with that eye of favour and serenity which I have been blessed with for some days past, and I will submit to my beloved conqueress, whose power never was at so great an height with me, as now, and retire to my apartment.

God Almighty, said she, hear your prayers in your most arduous moments, as you have heard mine! and now leave me, this moment leave me, to my own recollection:  in that you will leave me to misery enough, and more than you ought to wish to your bitterest enemy.

Impute not every thing, my best beloved, to design, for design it was not—­

O Mr. Lovelace!

Upon my soul, Madam, the fire was real—­[and so it was, Jack!]—­The house, my dearest life, might have been consumed by it, as you will be convinced in the morning by ocular demonstration.

O Mr. Lovelace!—­

Let my passion for you, Madam, and the unexpected meeting of you at your chamber-door, in an attitude so charming—­

Leave me, leave me, this moment!—­I beseech you leave me; looking wildly and in confusion about her, and upon herself.

Excuse me, my dearest creature, for those liberties which, innocent as they were, your too great delicacy may make you take amiss—­

No more! no more!—­leave me, I beseech you! again looking upon herself, and round her, in a sweet confusion—­Begone! begone!

Then weeping, she struggled vehemently to withdraw her hands, which all the while I held between mine.—­Her struggles!—­O what additional charms, as I now reflect, did her struggles give to every feature, every limb, of a person so sweetly elegant and lovely!