Sir! said the dear creature--Alas!--And turned weeping from
me with inimitable grace--as if she had said--Alas!--you have robbed me
of my honour!

I hoped then, that her angry passions were subsiding; but I was mistaken;
for, urging her warmly for the day; and that for the sake of our mutual
honour, and the honour of both our families; in this high-flown and
high-souled strain she answered me:

And canst thou, Lovelace, be so mean--as to wish to make a wife of the
creature thou hast insulted, dishonoured, and abused, as thou hast me?
Was it necessary to humble me down to the low level of thy baseness,
before I could be a wife meet for thee? Thou hadst a father, who was a
man of honour: a mother, who deserved a better son. Thou hast an uncle,
who is no dishonour to the Peerage of a kingdom, whose peers are more
respectable than the nobility of any other country. Thou hast other
relations also, who may be thy boast, though thou canst not be theirs--
and canst thou not imagine, that thou hearest them calling upon thee; the
dead from their monuments; the living from their laudable pride; not to
dishonour thy ancient and splendid house, by entering into wedlock with a
creature whom thou hast levelled with the dirt of the street, and classed
with the vilest of her sex?

I extolled her greatness of soul, and her virtue. I execrated myself for
my guilt: and told her, how grateful to the manes of my ancestors, as
well as to the wishes of the living, the honour I supplicated for would
be.

But still she insisted upon being a free agent; of seeing herself in
other lodgings before she would give what I urged the least
consideration. Nor would she promise me favour even then, or to permit
my visits. How then, as I asked her, could I comply, without resolving
to lose her for ever?

She put her hand to her forehead often as she talked; and at last,
pleading disorder in her head, retired; neither of us satisfied with the
other. But she ten times more dissatisfied with me, than I with her.

Dorcas seems to be coming into favour with her--

What now!--What now!

MONDAY NIGHT.

How determined is this lady!--Again had she like to have escaped us!--
What a fixed resentment!--She only, I find, assumed a little calm, in
order to quiet suspicion. She was got down, and actually had unbolted
the street-door, before I could get to her; alarmed as I was by Mrs.
Sinclair's cookmaid, who was the only one that saw her fly through