event which might latently be the cause
of the alteration of all around at Streatham. He then naturally
wished for some explanation with his daughter, though he never
forced, or even claimed her confidence; well knowing, that
voluntarily to give it him had been her earliest delight.

"But in taking her home with him one morning, to pass a day in St.
Martin's Street, he almost involuntarily, in driving from the
paddock, turned back his head towards the house, and, in a tone the
most impressive, sighed out: 'Adieu, Streatham!--Adieu!'"

* * * * *

"_A few weeks earlier_, the Memorialist had passed a nearly similar
scene with Dr. Johnson. Not, however, she believes, from the same
formidable species of surmise; but from the wounds inflicted upon his
injured sensibility, through the palpably altered looks, tone, and
deportment, of the bewildered lady of the mansion; who, cruelly aware
what would be his wrath, and how overwhelming his reproaches against
her projected union, wished to break up their residing under the same
roof before it should be proclaimed.

"This gave to her whole behaviour towards Dr. Johnson, a sort of
restless petulancy, of which she was sometimes hardly conscious, at
others, nearly reckless; but which hurt him far more than she
purposed, _though short of the point at which she aimed_, of
precipitating a change of dwelling that would elude its being cast,
either by himself or the world, upon a passion that her understanding
blushed to own, even while she was sacrificing to it all of inborn
dignity that she had been bred to hold most sacred.

"Dr. Johnson, while still uninformed of an entanglement it was
impossible he should conjecture, attributed her varying humours to
the effect of wayward health meeting a sort of sudden wayward power:
and imagined that caprices, which he judged to be partly feminine,
_and partly wealthy_, would soberise themselves away in being
unnoticed."

"But at length, as she became more and more dissatisfied with her own
situation, and impatient for its relief, she grew less and less
scrupulous with regard to her celebrated guest: she slighted his
counsel; did not heed his remonstrances; avoided his society; was
ready at a moment's hint to lend him her carriage when he wished to
return to Bolt Court; but awaited a formal request to accord it for
bringing him back.

"The Doctor then began to be stung; his own aspect became altered;
and depre