rmed man thou resolvest I should be, before I had the least
encouragement given me? Is it thus, that the more thou knowest me, the
less thou seest reason to approve of me?--And can art and design
enter into a breast so celestial? To banish me from thee, to insist so
rigorously upon my absence, in order to bring me closer to thee, and
make the blessing dear? Well do thy arts justify mine; and encourage me
to let loose my plotting genius upon thee.

* Mr. Lovelace might have spared this caution on this occasion, since
many of the sex [we mention it with regret] who on the first publication
had read thus far, and even to the lady's first escape, have been
readier to censure her for over-niceness, as we have observed in a
former note, page 42, than him for artifices and exultations not less
cruel and ungrateful, than ungenerous and unmanly.

But let me tell thee, charming maid, if thy wishes are at all to be
answered, that thou hast yet to account to me for thy reluctance to go
off with me, at a crisis when thy going off was necessary to avoid being
forced into the nuptial fetters with a wretch, that, were he not thy
aversion, thou wert no more honest to thy own merit than to me.

I am accustomed to be preferred, let me tell thee, by thy equals in rank
too, though thy inferiors in merit: But who is not so? And shall I marry
a woman, who has given me reason to doubt the preference she has for me?

No, my dearest love, I have too sacred a regard for thy injunctions, to
let them be broken through, even by thyself. Nor will I take in thy full
meaning by blushing silence only. Nor shalt thou give me room to doubt,
whether it be necessity or love, that inspires this condescending
impulse.

Upon these principles, what had I to do but to construe her silence into
contemptuous displeasure? And I begged her pardon for making a motion
which I had so much reason to fear would offend her: for the future I
would pay a sacred regard to her previous injunctions, and prove to
her by all my conduct the truth of that observation, That true love is
always fearful of offending.

And what could the lady say to this? methinks thou askest.

Say!--Why she looked vexed, disconcerted, teased; was at a loss, as I
thought, whether to be more angry with herself, or with me. She turned
about, however, as if to hide a starting tear; and drew a sigh into
two or three but just audible quavers, trying to suppress it, and
withdrew--leaving me