usband. Is not
this a great deal of news for me that never stir abroad? Nay, I had
brought me to-day more than all this: that I am marrying myself! And the
pleasantness on't is that it should be to my Lord St. John. Would he
look on me, think you, that had pretty Mrs. Fretcheville? My comfort is,
I have not seen him since he was a widower, and never spoke to him in my
life. I found myself so innocent that I never blushed when they told it
me. What would I give I could avoid it when people speak of you? In
earnest, I do prepare myself all that is possible to hear it spoken of,
yet for my life I cannot hear your name without discovering that I am
more than ordinarily concerned in't. A blush is the foolishest thing
that can be, and betrays one more than a red nose does a drunkard; and
yet I would not so wholly have lost them as some women that I know has,
as much injury as they do me. I can assure you now that I shall be here
a fortnight longer (they tell me no lodger, upon pain of his Highness's
displeasure, must remove sooner); but when I have his leave I go into
Suffolk for a month, and then come hither again to go into Kent, where I
intend to bury myself alive again as I did in Bedfordshire, unless you
call me out and tell me I may be happy. Alas! how fain I would hope it,
but I cannot, and should it ever happen, 'twould be long before I should
believe 'twas meant for me in earnest, or that 'twas other than a dream.
To say truth, I do not love to think on't, I find so many things to fear
and so few to hope.

'Tis better telling you that I will send my letters where you direct,
that they shall be as long ones as possibly my time will permit, and
when at any time you miss of one, I give you leave to imagine as many
kind things as you please, and to believe I mean them all to you.

Farewell.

_Letter 59._--It is a little astonishing to read, as one does in this
and the last letter, of race meetings, and Dorothy, habited in a mask,
disporting herself at New Spring Gardens or in the Park. It opens one's
eyes to the exaggerated gloom that has been thrown over England during
the Puritan reign by those historians who have derived their information
solely from State papers and proclamations. It is one thing to proclaim
amusements, another to abolish them. The first was undoubtedly done,
but we doubt if there was ever any long-continued effort to do the last;
and in the latter part of Cromwell's reign the gloom, and the
str