riors have been taught to conceal, in order
to render themselves less natural, and of consequence less pleasing.

But I charge thee, that thou do not (what I would not permit myself to
do for the world--I charge thee, that thou do not) crop my Rose-bud. She
is the only flower of fragrance, that has blown in this vicinage for ten
years past, or will for ten years to come: for I have looked backward
to the have-been's, and forward to the will-be's; having but too much
leisure upon my hands in my present waiting.

I never was so honest for so long together since my matriculation. It
behoves me so to be--some way or other, my recess at this little inn may
be found out; and it will then be thought that my Rose-bud has attracted
me. A report in my favour, from simplicities so amiable, may establish
me; for the grandmother's relation to my Rose-bud may be sworn to: and
the father is an honest, poor man; has no joy, but in his Rose-bud.--O
Jack! spare thou, therefore, (for I shall leave thee often alone with
her, spare thou) my Rose-bud!--Let the rule I never departed from, but
it cost me a long regret, be observed to my Rose-bud!--never to ruin a
poor girl, whose simplicity and innocence were all she had to trust to;
and whose fortunes were too low to save her from the rude contempts of
worse minds than her own, and from an indigence extreme: such a one will
only pine in secret; and at last, perhaps, in order to refuge herself
from slanderous tongues and virulence, be induced to tempt some
guilty stream, or seek her end in the knee-encircling garter, that
peradventure, was the first attempt of abandoned love.--No defiances
will my Rose-bud breathe; no self-dependent, thee-doubting watchfulness
(indirectly challenging thy inventive machinations to do their worst)
will she assume. Unsuspicious of her danger, the lamb's throat will
hardly shun thy knife!--O be not thou the butcher of my lambkin!

The less thou be so, for the reason I am going to give thee--The gentle
heart is touched by love: her soft bosom heaves with a passion she
has not yet found a name for. I once caught her eye following a young
carpenter, a widow neighbour's son, living [to speak in her dialect] at
the little white house over the way. A gentle youth he also seems to be,
about three years older than herself: playmates from infancy, till
his eighteenth and her fifteenth year furnished a reason for a greater
distance in shew, while their hearts gave a better