e utmost impatience, looking out at the window, expecting the
postman that usually brought the foreign letters--I say I was agreeably
surprised to see a coach come to the yard-gate where we lived, and my
woman Amy alight out of it and come towards the door, having the
coachman bringing several bundles after her.

I flew like lightning downstairs to speak to her, but was soon damped
with her news. "Is the prince alive or dead, Amy?" says I. She spoke
coldly and slightly. "He is alive, madam," said she. "But it is not much
matter; I had as lieu he had been dead." So we went upstairs again to my
chamber, and there we began a serious discourse of the whole matter.

First, she told me a long story of his being hurt by a wild boar, and of
the condition he was reduced to, so that every one expected he should
die, the anguish of the wound having thrown him into a fever, with
abundance of circumstances too long to relate here; how he recovered of
that extreme danger, but continued very weak; how the gentleman had been
_homme de parole_, and had sent back the courier as punctually as if it
had been to the king; that he had given a long account of his lord, and
of his illness and recovery; but the sum of the matter, as to me, was,
that as to the lady, his lord was turned penitent, was under some vows
for his recovery, and could not think any more on that affair; and
especially, the lady being gone, and that it had not been offered to
her, so there was no breach of honour; but that his lord was sensible of
the good offices of Mrs. Amy, and had sent her the fifty pistoles for
her trouble, as if she had really gone the journey.

I was, I confess, hardly able to bear the first surprise of this
disappointment. Amy saw it, and gapes out (as was her way), "Lawd,
madam! never be concerned at it; you see he is gotten among the priests,
and I suppose they have saucily imposed some penance upon him, and, it
may be, sent him of an errand barefoot to some Madonna or Notredame, or
other; and he is off of his amours for the present. I'll warrant you
he'll be as wicked again as ever he was when he is got thorough well,
and gets but out of their hands again. I hate this out-o'-season
repentance. What occasion had he, in his repentance, to be off of taking
a good wife? I should have been glad to see you have been a princess,
and all that; but if it can't be, never afflict yourself; you are rich
enough to be a princess to yourself; you don't want h