n the blank leaf opposite this paragraph is written, in a large,
girlish hand:

"I never intend to go.--THEODOSIA."

"Nor I.--HESTER."

They both married, as I see by the note in the family Bible--Miss
Theodosia Warrington to Joseph Clinton, son of the Rev. Joseph Blake,
and himself subsequently Master of Rodwell Regis Grammar School; and
Miss Hester Mary, in 1804, to Captain F. Handyman, R.N.--ED.]

Whilst they had the blessing (forsooth!) of meeting, and billing and
cooing every day, the two young people, your parents, went on in a
fool's paradise, little heeding the world round about them, and all its
tattling and meddling. Rinaldo was as brave a warrior as ever slew Turk,
but you know he loved dangling in Armida's garden. Pray, my Lady Armida,
what did you mean by flinging your spells over me in youth, so that not
glory, not fashion, not gaming-tables, not the society of men of wit in
whose way I fell, could keep me long from your apron-strings, or out of
reach of your dear simple prattle? Pray, my dear, what used we to say to
each other during those endless hours of meeting? I never went to sleep
after dinner then. Which of us was so witty? Was it I or you? And how
came it our conversations were so delightful? I remember that year I did
not even care to go and see my Lord Ferrers tried and hung, when all the
world was running after his lordship. The King of Prussia's capital
was taken; had the Austrians and Russians been encamped round the Tower
there could scarce have been more stir in London: yet Miss Theo and her
young gentleman felt no inordinate emotion of pity or indignation. What
to us was the fate of Leipzig or Berlin? The truth is, that dear old
house in Dean Street was an enchanted garden of delights. I have been as
idle since, but never as happy. Shall we order the postchaise, my dear,
leave the children to keep house; and drive up to London and see if the
old lodgings are still to be let? And you shall sit at your old place in
the window, and wave a little handkerchief as I walk up the street. Say
what we did was imprudent. Would we not do it over again? My good folks,
if Venus had walked into the room and challenged the apple, I was so
infatuated, I would have given it your mother. And had she had the
choice, she would have preferred her humble servant in a threadbare coat
to my Lord Clive with all his diamonds.

Once, to be sure, and for a brief time in that year, I had a notion of
going on the