rior appearance how my beloved fared within;
and called for a bottle at the coffee-house where I waited Jack's
return. I called him Brother when I sent him away. I fondled him as the
condemned wretch at Newgate hangs about the jailor or the parson, or any
one who is kind to him in his misery. I drank a whole bottle of wine at
the coffee-house--by the way, Jack's Coffee-House was its name--called
another. I thought Jack would never come back.

He appeared at length with rather a scared face; and, coming to my box,
poured out for himself two or three bumpers from my second bottle,
and then fell to his story, which, to me at least, was not a little
interesting. My poor Theo was keeping her room, it appeared, being much
agitated by the occurrences of yesterday; and Jack had come home in time
to find dinner on table; after which his good father held forth upon the
occurrences of the morning, being anxious and able to speak more freely,
he said, because his eldest son was present and Theodosia was not in the
room. The General stated what had happened at my lodgings between me and
him. He bade Hester be silent, who indeed was as dumb as a mouse, poor
thing! he told Aunt Lambert (who was indulging in that madefaction of
pocket-handkerchiefs which I have before described), and with something
like an imprecation, that the women were all against him, and pimps (he
called them) for one another; and frantically turning round to Jack,
asked what was his view in the matter?

To his father's surprise and his mother's and sister's delight,
Jack made a speech on my side. He ruled with me (citing what ancient
authorities I don't know), that the matter had gone out of the hands of
the parents on either side; that having given their consent, some months
previously, the elders had put themselves out of court. Though he did
not hold with a great, a respectable, he might say a host of divines,
those sacramental views of the marriage-ceremony--for which there was a
great deal to be said--yet he held it, if possible, even more sacredly
than they; conceiving that though marriages were made before the civil
magistrate, and without the priest, yet they were, before Heaven,
binding and indissoluble.

"It is not merely, sir," says Jack, turning to his father, "those whom
I, John Lambert, Priest, have joined, let no man put asunder; it is
those whom God has joined let no man separate." (Here he took off his
hat, as he told the story to me.) "My view