motion, if it were only
for the sake of your father and mother, that they may have the
satisfaction, if they must lose you, to think they were first reconciled
to you.

It is very kindly, very humanely considered, said she. But, if you think
me not so very near my last hour, let me desire this may be postponed
till I see what effect my cousin Morden's mediation may have. Perhaps he
may vouchsafe to make me a visit yet, after his intended interview with
Mr. Lovelace is over; of which, who knows, Mr. Belford, but your next
letters may give an account? I hope it will not be a fatal one to any
body. Will you promise me, Doctor, to forbear writing for two days only,
and I will communicate to you any thing that occurs in that time; and then
you shall take your own way? Mean time, I repeat my thanks for your
goodness to me.--Nay, dear Doctor, hurry not away from me so
precipitately [for he was going, for fear of an offered fee]: I will no
more affront you with tenders that have pained you for some time past:
and since I must now, from this kindly-offered favour, look upon you only
as a friend, I will assure you henceforth that I will give you no more
uneasiness on that head: and now, Sir, I know I shall have the pleasure
of seeing you oftener than heretofore.

The worthy gentleman was pleased with this assurance, telling her that he
had always come to see her with great pleasure, but parted with her, on
the account she hinted at, with as much pain; and that he should not have
forborne to double his visits, could he have had this kind assurance as
early as he wished for it.

There are few instances of like disinterestedness, I doubt, in this
tribe. Till now I always held it for gospel, that friendship and
physician were incompatible things; and little imagined that a man of
medicine, when he had given over his patient to death, would think of any
visits but those of ceremony, that he might stand well with the family,
against it came to their turns to go through his turnpike.

After the doctor was gone, she fell into a very serious discourse of the
vanity of life, and the wisdom of preparing for death, while health and
strength remained, and before the infirmities of body impaired the
faculties of the mind, and disabled them from acting with the necessary
efficacy and clearness: the whole calculated for every one's meridian,
but particularly, as it was easy to observe, for thine and mine.

She was very curious to know