very true.--And they must needs say, it did not look quite
so pretty, in such a lady as my spouse, to be so censorious.

A foundation here, thought I, to procure these women's help to get back
the fugitive, or their connivance, at least, at my doing so; as well as
for anticipating any future information from Miss Howe.

I gave them a character of that virago; and intimated, 'that for a head
to contrive mischief, and a heart to execute it, she had hardly her equal
in her sex.'

To this Miss Howe it was, Mrs. Moore said, she supposed, that my spouse
was so desirous to dispatch a man and horse, by day-dawn, with a letter
she wrote before she went to bed last night, proposing to stay no longer
than till she had received an answer to it.

The very same, said I; I knew she would have immediate recourse to her.
I should have been but too happy, could I have prevented such a letter
from passing, or so to have it managed, as to have it given into Mrs.
Howe's hands, instead of her daughter's. Women who had lived some time
in the world knew better, than to encourage such skittish pranks in young
wives.

Let me just stop to tell thee, while it is in my head, that I have since
given Will. his cue to find out where the man lives who is gone with the
fair fugitive's letter; and, if possible, to see him on his return,
before he sees her.

I told the women, 'I despaired that it would ever be better with us while
Miss Howe had so strange an ascendancy over my spouse, and remained
herself unmarried. And until the reconciliation with her friends could
be effected; or a still happier event--as I should think it, who am the
last male of my family; and which my foolish vow, and her rigour, had
hitherto'--

Here I stopt, and looked modest, turning my diamond ring round my finger;
while goody Moore looked mighty significant, calling it a very particular
case; and the maiden fanned away, and primm'd, and purs'd, to show that
what I had said needed no farther explanantion.

'I told them the occasion of our present difference. I avowed the
reality of the fire; but owned, that I would have made no scruple of
breaking the unnatural oath she had bound me in, (having a husband's
right on my side,) when she was so accidentally frighted into my arms;
and I blamed myself excessively, that I did not; since she thought fit to
carry her resentment so high, and had the injustice to suppose the fire
to be a contrivance of mine.'

Nay, for that m