y much out of humour all breakfast-time;
and, soon after breakfast was over, retired to his study. Mr.
Cranstoun and I then took a walk. At dinner my father appeared in the
best of humours, and continued so all the time Mr. Cranstoun stayed
with him. Mr. Cranstoun and I used to walk out every day. On one of
those days, Mr. Cranstoun told me he had a secret to impart to me, and
begg'd me not to be angry with him for it; adding, he knew I had too
much good sense to be so. The secret in short was this: he had had a
daughter by one Miss Capel, a year before he knew me; and, as he
pretended, all his friends had insisted upon his telling me of it. To
this I replied, "Your follies, Cranstoun, have been very great; but I
hope you see them." "That I do," said he, "with penitence and shame."
"Then, sir," replied I, "I freely forgive you; but never shall, if you
repeat these follies now after our acquaintance." "If I do," said he,
"I must be a villain; you alone can make me happy in this world; and,
by following your example, I hope I shall be happy in the next." Mr.
Cranstoun gave my father the powder in August 1750, and stayed with
him in Henley, as I believe, till some day in the beginning of
November, the same year. A day or two after the preceding dialogue,
one morning I got, up, and asked my maid, "How Mr. Cranstoun did?" Who
answered, "He is gone out a walking, Madam." Upon this, I, as soon as
I was drest, went up into Mr. Cranstoun's room, to look out his linnen
for my maid to mend. I could not find it on the table, where it used
to lie; and seeing a key in his trunk, I opened it. The first thing I
found there was a letter from a hand I knew not, tho' he used always
to give me his letters to open, and that unasked by me. This I opened
to read, and found it to come from a woman he kept. Having read it, I
shut the trunk, locked it fast, and put the key in my pocket. The
letter I left in the same place where I found it. I then went down to
my father in his study, and asked him to come to breakfast. He said,
"No, not till Cranstoun returns home;" on which I retired into the
parlour. A few minutes after, Mr. Cranstoun and Mr. Littleton, my
father's clerk, both came in together. We all of us then went to
breakfast. My father said to me, soon after we sat down, "You look
very pale, Molly; what is the matter with you?" "I am not very well,
sir," replied I. After we had breakfasted, my father and his clerk
went out of the room. I th