which
my vanity ought long ago to have been satisfied with?

In our cessations from active pleasure, Charles framed himself one, in
instructing me, as far as his own lights reached, in a great many
points of life, that I was, in consequence of my no-education, perfectly
ignorant of: nor did I suffer one word to fall in vain from the mouth of
my lovely teacher: I hung on every syllable he uttered, and received,
as oracles, all he said; whilst kisses were all the interruption I could
not refuse myself the pleasure of admitting, from lips that breathed
more than Arabian sweetness, I was in a little time enabled, by the
progress I had made, to prove the deep regard I had paid to all that he
had said to me: repeating it to him almost word for word; and to shew
that I was not entirely the parrot, but that I reflected upon, that I
entered into it, I joined my own comments, and asked him questions of
explanation.

My country accent, and the rusticity of my gait, manners, and
deportment, began now sensibly to wear off: so quick was my observation,
and so efficacious my desire of growing every day worthier of his heart.

As to money, though, he brought me constantly all he received, it was
with difficulty he even got me to give it room in my bureau; and what
clothes I had, he could prevail on me to accept of on no other foot,
than that of pleasing him by the greater neatness in my dress, beyond
which I had no ambition. I could have made a pleasure of the greatest
toil, and worked my fingers to the bone, with joy, to have supported
him: guess, then, if I could harbour any idea of being burthensome to
him, and this disinterested turn in me was so unaffected, so much the
dictate of my heart, that Charles could not but feel it: and if he did
not love me as much as I did him (which was the constant and only matter
of sweet contention between us), he managed so, at least, as to give me
the satisfaction of believing it impossible for man to be more tender,
more true, more faithful than he was.

Our landlady, Mrs. Jones, came frequently up to my apartment, from
whence I never stirred on any pretext without Charles; nor was it
long before she wormed out, without much art, the secret of our having
cheated the church of a ceremony, and, in course, of the terms we lived
together upon; a circumstance which far from displeased her, considering
the designs she had upon me, and which, alas! she will have too soon,
room to carry into executi