re any body that instigates you?--If
there be, again I curse them, be they whom they will.

She was in a charming pretty passion. And this was the first time that I
had the odds in my favour.

Well, Madam, it is just as I thought. And now I know how to account for
a temper that I hope is not natural to you.

Artful wretch! and is it thus you would entrap me? But know, Sir, that I
received letters from nobody but Miss Howe. Miss Howe likes some of your
ways as little as I do; for I have set every thing before her. Yet she
is thus far your enemy, as she is mine. She thinks I could not refuse
your offers; but endeavour to make the best of my lot. And now you have
the truth. Would to heaven you were capable of dealing with equal
sincerity!

I am, Madam. And here, on my knee, I renew my vows, and my supplication,
that you will make me your's. Your's for ever. And let me have cause to
bless you and Miss Howe in the same breath.

To say the truth, Belford, I had before begun to think that the vixen of
a girl, who certainly likes not Hickman, was in love with me.

Rise, Sir, from your too-ready knees; and mock me not!

Too-ready knees, thought I! Though this humble posture so little affects
this proud beauty, she knows not how much I have obtained of others of
her sex, nor how often I have been forgiven for the last attempts, by
kneeling.

Mock you, Madam! And I arose, and re-urged her for the day. I blamed
myself, at the same time, for the invitation I had given to Lord M., as
it might subject me to delay from his infirmities: but told her, that I
would write to him to excuse me, if she had no objection; or to give him
the day she would give me, and not wait for him, if he could not come in
time.

My day, Sir, said she, is never. Be not surprised. A person of
politeness judging between us, would not be surprised that I say so. But
indeed, Mr. Lovelace, [and wept through impatience,] you either know not
how to treat with a mind of the least degree of delicacy, notwithstanding
your birth and education, or you are an ungrateful man; and [after a
pause] a worse than ungrateful one. But I will retire. I will see you
again to-morrow. I cannot before. I think I hate you. And if, upon a
re-examination of my own heart, I find I do, I would not for the world
that matters should go on farther between us.

But I see, I see, she does not hate me! How it would mortify my vanity,
if I thought there was a wo