where (Lovelaces in every corner, Jack !) and many about that town, who would leave nothing unattempted to get into her company and although they might not prevail upon her, yet might they nevertheless hurt her reputation, and, in time, estrange the affections of so fine a gentleman from her.

Good sensible people, these!-ey, Jack!

Here, landlord; one word with you.-My servant, I find, has acquainted you with the reason of my coming this way. An unhappy affair, landlord! A very unhappy affair! But never was there a more virtuous woman.

So, sir, she seems to be. A thousand pities her ladyship has such ways—and to so good-humoured a gentleman as you seem to be, sir.

care not what it is.

I

Mother-spoilt, landlord !—Mother-spoilt ! that's the thing!-But, sighing, I must make the best of it. What I want you to do for me, is to lend me a great coat. If my spouse should see me at a distance, she would make it very difficult for me to get at her speech. A great coat with a cape, if you have one. I must come upon her before she is aware.

I am afraid, sir, I have none fit for such a gentleman as you.

O, anything will do!-The worse the better.

Exit Landlord. Re-enter with two great coats. Ay, landlord, this will be best: for I can button the cape over the lower part of my face. Don't I look devilishly down and concerned, landlord ?

I never saw a gentleman with a better-natured look, 'tis pity you should have such trials, sir.

Can't you, landlord, lend or sell me a pair of stockings, that will draw over these? I can cut off the feet, if they won't go into my shoes.

He could let me have a pair of coarse, but clean, stirrupstockings, if I pleased.

The best in the world for the purpose.

He fetched them. Will drew them on; and my legs then made a good gouty appearance.

The good woman, smiling, wished me success; and so did the landlord and as thou knowest that I am not a bad mimic, I took a cane, which I borrowed of the landlord, and stooped in the shoulders to a quarter of a foot of less height, and stumped away cross to the bowling-green, to practise a little the hobbling gait of a gouty man. The landlady whispered her husband, as Will tells me, he's a good one, I warrant him-I dare say the fault lies not all of one side. While mine host replied, that I was so lively and so good-natured a gentleman, that he did not know who could be angry with me, do what I would. A sensible fellow !—I wish my charmer were of the same opinion.

And now I am going to try, if I can't agree with goody Moore for lodgings and other conveniences for my sick wife.

Wife, Lovelace! methinks thou interrogatest.

Yes, wife; for who knows what cautions the dear fugitive may have given in apprehension of me?

Although grievously afflicted with the gout, I alighted out of my chariot (leaning very hard on my cane with one hand, and on my new servant's shoulder with the other) the same instant almost that he had knocked at the door, that I might be sure of admission into the house.

The maid came to the door. I asked for her mistress. She showed me into one of the parlours; and I sat down, with a gouty Oh !—

Enter Goody Moore.

Your servant, Madam-but you must excuse me; I cannot well stand.-I find by the bill at the door, that you have lodgings to let (mumbling my words as if, like my man Will, I had lost some of my fore-teeth): be pleased to inform me what they are; for I like your situation-and I will tell you my family-I have a wife, a good

old woman—older than myself, by the way, a pretty deal. She is in a bad state of health, and is advised into the

Hampstead air. She will have two maidservants and a footman. The coach or chariot (I shall not have them up both together) we can put up anywhere, and the coachman will be with his horses.

You shall see what accommodations I have, if you please, sir. But I doubt you are too lame to walk up-stairs.

I can make shift to hobble up now I have rested a little. I'll just look upon the apartment my wife is to have. Anything may do for the servants: and as you seem to be a good sort of gentlewoman, I shan't stand for a price, and will pay well besides for the trouble I shall give.

She led the way; and I, helping myself by the banisters, made shift to get up with less fatigue than I expected from ancles so weak. Never was there a more joyous heart and lighter heels than mine, joined together; yet both denied their functions; the one fluttering in secret, ready to burst its bars for relief-ful expression, the others obliged to an hobbling motion; when, unrestrained, they would, in their master's imagination, have mounted him to the lunar world without the help of a ladder.

There were three rooms on a floor; two of them handsome; and the third, she said, still handsomer; but a lady was in it.

But, madam, cannot a body just peep into the other apartment, that I may be more particular to my wife in the furniture of it?

The lady desires to be private, sir-but-and was going to ask her leave.

I caught hold of her hand-however, stay, stay, madam : it mayn't be proper, if the lady loves to be private. Don't let me intrude upon the lady

O Belford ! to be so near my angel, think what a painful constraint I was under !

I was resolved to fetch her out, if possible: and pretending to be going-you can't agree as to any time, Mrs. Moore, when we can have this third room, can you ?—Not that (whispered I, loud enough to be heard in the next room; not that) I would incommode the lady: but I would tell my wife when abouts-and women, you know, Mrs. Moore, love to have everything before them of this

nature.

Mrs. Moore, said my charmer (and never did her voice sound so harmonious to me: oh how my heart bounded again! It even talked to me, in a manner; for I thought I heard, as well as felt, its unruly flutters; and every vein about me seemed a pulse :) Mrs. Moore you may acquaint the gentleman, that I shall stay here only for two or three days at most, till I receive an answer to a letter I have written into the country; and rather than be your hindrance, I will take up with any apartment a pair of stairs higher.

Not for the world !-not for the world, young lady, cried I my wife, well as I love her, should lie in a garret, rather than put such a considerate lady as you seem to be, to the least inconveniency.

She opened not the door yet; and I said, but since you have so much goodness, madam, if I could but just look into the closet as I stand, I could tell my wife whether it is large enough to hold a cabinet she much values, and will have with her wherever she goes.

Then my charmer opened the door, and blazed upon me, as it were, in a flood of light, like what one might imagine would strike a man, who, born blind, had by some propitious power been blessed with his sight, all at once, in a meridian sun.

Upon my soul, I never was so strangely affected before. I had much ado to forbear discovering myself that instant: but, hesitatingly, and in great disorder, I said, looking into the closet, and around it, there is room, I see, for my

wife's cabinet; and it has many jewels in it of high price; but, upon my soul (for I could not forbear swearing, like a puppy :-habit is a cursed thing, Jack-) nothing so valuable as the lady I see, can be brought into it.

She started, and looked at me with terror. The truth of the compliment, as far as I know, had taken dissimulation from my accent.

I saw it was impossible to conceal myself longer from her, any more than (from the violent impulses of my passion) to forbear manifesting myself. I unbuttoned therefore my cape, I pulled off my flapt slouched hat; I threw open my great coat, and, like the devil in Milton (an odd comparison though!)

I started up in my own form divine,

Touch'd by the beam of her celestial eye,
More potent than Ithuriel's spear!—

Now, Belford, for a similitude-now for a likeness to illustrate the surprising scene, and the effect it had upon my charmer, and the gentlewoman!-But nothing was like it, or equal to it. The plain fact can only describe it, and set it off-thus then take it.

She no sooner saw who it was, than she gave three violent screams; and, before I could catch her in my arms (as I was about to do the moment I discovered myself) down she sunk at my feet, in a fit; which made me curse my indiscretion for so suddenly, and with so much emotion, revealing myself.

It is needless to follow in detail all the cajoleries by which Lovelace manages to convince the people of the lodgings with whom his poor hunted victim had found refuge, of the integrity of his intentions and of his relation to Clarissa. He deludes them into a belief that he is already married to her, and that he abstains from living with her on the terms of a husband only to satisfy some punctilio of her own,

VOL. II.

M