now a friend arrived of whom he was to take a harder and more tender leave than he had yet gone through.  This friend, reader, was no other than Mrs. Heartfree herself, who ran to him with a look all wild, staring, and frantic, and having reached his arms, fainted away in them without uttering a single syllable.  Heartfree was, with great difficulty, able to preserve his own senses in such a surprize at such a season.  And indeed our good-natured reader will be rather inclined to wish this miserable couple had, by dying in each other’s arms, put a final period to their woes, than have survived to taste those bitter moments which were to be their portion, and which the unhappy wife, soon recovering from the short intermission of being, now began to suffer.  When she became first mistress of her voice she burst forth into the following accents:—­ “O my husband!  Is this the condition in which I find you after our cruel separation?  Who hath done this?  Cruel Heaven!  What is the occasion?  I know thou canst deserve no ill.  Tell me, somebody who can speak, while I have my senses left to understand, what is the matter?” At which words several laughed, and one answered, “The matter!  Why no great matter.  The gentleman is not the first, nor won’t be the last:  the worst of the matter is, that if we are to stay all the morning here I shall lose my dinner.”  Heartfree, pausing a moment and recollecting himself, cryed out, “I will bear all with patience.”  And then, addressing himself to the commanding officer, begged he might only have a few minutes by himself with his wife, whom he had not seen before since his misfortunes.  The great man answered, “He had compassion on him, and would do more than he could answer; but he supposed he was too much a gentleman not to know that something was due for such civility.”  On this hint, Friendly, who was himself half dead, pulled five guineas out of his pocket, which the great man took, and said he would be so generous to give him ten minutes; on which one observed that many a gentleman had bought ten minutes with a woman dearer, and many other facetious remarks were made, unnecessary to be here related.  Heartfree was now suffered to retire into a room with his wife, the commander informing him at his entrance that he must be expeditious, for that the rest of the good company would be at the tree before him, and he supposed he was a gentleman of too much breeding to make them wait.

This tender wretched couple were now retired for these few minutes, which the commander without carefully measured with his watch; and Heartfree was mustering all his resolution to part with what his soul so ardently doated on, and to conjure her to support his loss for the sake of her poor infants, and to comfort her with the promise of Friendly on their account; but all his design was frustrated.  Mrs. Heartfree could not support the shock, but again fainted away, and so entirely lost every symptom of life that Heartfree