t ye music sounded, like ye hymns of angels in ye dewy evening! but
that was nigh upon twenty years gone by, and all ye world is changed
since then.'

"You will conceive, Reverend Sir, that I was scandalised by such a
foolish rapsodie, and in plain words admonish'd my husband of his
folly. Whereupon he speedily became sober, and asked my pardon; but for
all that night continued of a gloomy countenance, ever and anon falling
to sighing and groning as before. Indeed, honour'd Sir, I have good
need of a patient sperrit in my dealings with him; for altho' at times
I think he is in a fair way to become a Christian, there are other
times when I doubt Satan has still a hold upon him, and that all my
prayers and admonitions have been in vaine.

"You, who know the wildness and wickedness of his past life--so far as
that life was ever known to any but himself, who was ever of a secret
and silent disposition concerning his own doings in this city, tho'
free-spoken and frank in all common matters--you, honour'd sir, know
with how serious an intention I have taken upon myself the burden of
matrimony, hoping thereby to secure the compleat conversion of this
waywarde soul. You are aware how it was ye earnest desire of my late
respected father that Mathew Haygarth and I shou'd be man and wife, his
father and my father haveing bin friends and companions in ye days of
her most gracious majesty Queen Anne. You know how, after being lost to
all decent company for many years, Mathew came back after his father's
death, and lived a sober and serious life, attending amongst our
community, and being seen to shed tears on more than one occasion while
listening to the discourse of our revered and inspired founder. And
you, my dear and honour'd pastor, will feel for me when I tell you how
I am tormented by ye fear of backsliding in this soul which I have
promised to restore to ye fold. It was but yesterday, when walking with
him near St. John's Gate at Clerkenwell, he came to a standstill all of
a sudden, and he cried in that impetuous manner which is even yet
natural to him, 'Look ye now, Becky, wouldst like to see the house in
which the happiest years of my life was spent?' And I making no answer,
as thinking it was but some sudden freak, he points out a black
dirty-looking dwelling-place, with overhanging windows and a wide
gabled roof. 'Yonder it stands, Becky,' he cries; 'number seven
John-street, Clerkenwell; a queer dingy box of four walls