he most busy and impertinent inquirers into the conduct of
their neighbours, especially that of a single woman, that are in the
world, though there are no greater intriguers in the universe than
themselves; and perhaps that may be the reason of it, for it is an old
but a sure rule, that

"When deep intrigues are close and shy,
The guilty are the first that spy."

Thus his Highness had the most easy, and yet the most undiscoverable,
access to me imaginable, and he seldom failed to come two or three
nights in a week, and sometimes stayed two or three nights together.
Once he told me he was resolved I should be weary of his company, and
that he would learn to know what it was to be a prisoner; so he gave out
among his servants that he was gone to ----, where he often went
a-hunting, and that he should not return under a fortnight; and that
fortnight he stayed wholly with me, and never went out of my doors.

Never woman in such a station lived a fortnight in so complete a fulness
of human delight; for to have the entire possession of one of the most
accomplished princes in the world, and of the politest, best-bred man;
to converse with him all day, and, as he professed, charm him all night,
what could be more inexpressibly pleasing, and especially to a woman of
a vast deal of pride, as I was?

To finish the felicity of this part, I must not forget that the devil
had played a new game with me, and prevailed with me to satisfy myself
with this amour, as a lawful thing; that a prince of such grandeur and
majesty, so infinitely superior to me, and one who had made such an
introduction by an unparalleled bounty, I could not resist; and,
therefore, that it was very lawful for me to do it, being at that time
perfectly single, and unengaged to any other man, as I was, most
certainly, by the unaccountable absence of my first husband, and the
murder of my gentleman who went for my second.

It cannot be doubted but that I was the easier to persuade myself of the
truth of such a doctrine as this when it was so much for my ease and for
the repose of my mind to have it be so:--

"In things we wish, 'tis easy to deceive;
What we would have, we willingly believe."

Besides, I had no casuists to resolve this doubt; the same devil that
put this into my head bade me go to any of the Romish clergy, and, under
the pretence of confession, state the case exactly, and I should see
they would either resolve it to be no sin a