upid family were in a combination to do my
business for me. I told thee that they were all working for me, like so
many ground moles; and still more blind than the moles are said to be,
unknowing that they did so. I myself, the director of their principal
motions; which falling in with the malice of their little hearts, they
took to be all their own.

But did I say my joy was perfect?--O no!--It receives some abatement
from my disgusted bride. For how can I endure to think that I owe more
to her relations' precautions than to her favour for me?--Or even, as
far as I know, to her preference of me to another man?

But let me not indulge this thought. Were I to do so, it might cost my
charmer dear. Let me rejoice, that she has passed the rubicon: that she
cannot return: that, as I have ordered it, the flight will appear to the
implacables to be altogether with her own consent: and that if I doubt
her love, I can put her to trials as mortifying to her niceness, as
glorious to my pride.--For, let me tell thee, dearly as I love her, if
I thought there was but the shadow of a doubt in her mind whether she
preferred me to any man living, I would shew her no mercy.

TUESDAY, DAY-DAWN.

But, on the wings of love, I fly to my charmer, who perhaps by this time
is rising to encourage the tardy dawn. I have not slept a wink of the
hour and half I lay down to invite sleep. It seems to me, that I am not
so much body, as to require such a vulgar renovation.

But why, as in the chariot, as in the inn, at alighting, all
heart-bursting grief, my dearest creature? SO persecuted as thou wert
persecuted!--So much in danger of the most abhorred compulsion!--Yet
grief so unsuspectedly sincere for an escape so critical!--Take care,
take care, O beloved of my soul! for jealous is the heart in which love
has erected a temple to thee.

Yet, it must be allowed, that such a sudden transition must affect her;
must ice her over. When a little more used to her new situation; when
her hurries are at an end; when she sees how religiously I shall
observe all her INJUNCTIONS; she will undoubtedly have the gratitude
to distinguish between the confinement she has escaped from, and the
liberty she has reason to rejoice in.

She comes! She comes! And the sun is just rising to attend her! Adieu!
Be half as happy as I am (for all diffidencies, like night-fogs before
the sun, disperse at her approach) and, next myself, thou wilt be the
happiest man in th