your slippers out at window, and be off--nobody knows
where.

* * * *

Finding that I was observed, I told the good women, the two Mrs. ----s,
simply that I was with child: and let them stare! and ------, and ------,
nay, all the world, may know it for aught I care!--Yet I wish to avoid
------'s coarse jokes.

Considering the care and anxiety a woman must have about a child before
it comes into the world, it seems to me, by a _natural right_, to belong
to her. When men get immersed in the world, they seem to lose all
sensations, excepting those necessary to continue or produce life!--Are
these the privileges of reason? Amongst the feathered race, whilst the
hen keeps the young warm, her mate stays by to cheer her; but it is
sufficient for man to condescend to get a child, in order to claim it.--A
man is a tyrant!

You may now tell me, that, if it were not for me, you would be laughing
away with some honest fellows in L--n. The casual exercise of social
sympathy would not be sufficient for me--I should not think such an
heartless life worth preserving.--It is necessary to be in good-humour
with you, to be pleased with the world.

* * * * *

Thursday Morning.

I WAS very low-spirited last night, ready to quarrel with your cheerful
temper, which makes absence easy to you.--And, why should I mince the the
matter? I was offended at your not even mentioning it.--I do not want to
be loved like a goddess; but I wish to be necessary to you. God bless
you[27-A]!

* * * * *

LETTER XI.

Monday Night.

I HAVE just received your kind and rational letter, and would fain hide
my face, glowing with shame for my folly.--I would hide it in your bosom,
if you would again open it to me, and nestle closely till you bade my
fluttering heart be still, by saying that you forgave me. With eyes
overflowing with tears, and in the humblest attitude, I intreat you.--Do
not turn from me, for indeed I love you fondly, and have been very
wretched, since the night I was so cruelly hurt by thinking that you had
no confidence in me----

It is time for me to grow more reasonable, a few more of these caprices
of sensibility would destroy me. I have, in fact, been very much
indisposed for a few days past, and the notion that I was tormenting, or
perhaps killing, a poor little animal, about whom I am grown anxious and
tender, now I feel it alive, made me worse. My bowels have bee