e things to you; I often dream I do; but perhaps if I could remember
them they are no wiser than my wakening discourses. Good-night.

_Letter 40._--A letter has been lost; whether Harrold or Collins, the
two carriers, were either or both of them guilty of carelessness in the
delivery of these letters, it is quite impossible to say now. Dorothy
seems to think Harrold delivered the letter, and it was mislaid in
London. Perhaps it was this letter, and what was written about it, that
caused all those latent feelings of despair and discontent to awaken in
the breasts of the two lovers. Was this the spark that loneliness and
absence fanned into flame? You shall judge for yourself, reader, in the
next chapter.

SIR,--That you may be at more certainty hereafter what to think, let me
tell you that nothing could hinder me from writing to you (as well for
my own satisfaction as yours) but an impossibility of doing it; nothing
but death or a dead palsy in my hands, or something that had the same
effect. I did write it, and gave it Harrold, but by an accident his
horse fell lame, so that he could not set out on Monday; but on Tuesday
he did come to town; on Wednesday, carried the letter himself (as he
tells me) where 'twas directed, which was to Mr. Copyn in Fleet Street.
'Twas the first time I made use of that direction; no matter and I had
not done it then, since it proves no better. Harrold came late home on
Thursday night with such an account as your boy gave you: that coming
out of town the same day he came in, he had been at Fleet Street again,
but there was no letter for him. I was sorry, but I did not much wonder
at it because he gave so little time, and resolved to make my best of
that I had by Collins. I read it over often enough to make it equal with
the longest letter that ever was writ, and pleased myself, in earnest
(as much as it was possible for me in the humour I was in), to think how
by that time you had asked me pardon for the little reproaches you had
made me, and that the kindness and length of my letter had made you
amends for the trouble it had given you in expecting it. But I am not a
little annoyed to find you had it not. I am very confident it was
delivered, and therefore you must search where the fault lies.

Were it not that you had suffered too much already, I would complain a
little of you. Why should you think me so careless of anything that you
were concerned in, as to doubt that I had writ? Thou