ves seem to think him entitled to a different usage, and expect
that he receives it; when, in truth, what he meets with from me is
exactly what they wish him to meet with, excepting in the favour of
my correspondence I honour him with; upon which, he says, he puts the
highest value, and for the sake of which he has submitted to a thousand
indignities.

'He renews his professions of reformation. He is convinced, he says,
that he has already run a long and dangerous course; and that it is high
time to think of returning. It must be from proper conviction, he says,
that a person who has lived too gay a life, resolves to reclaim, before
age or sufferings come upon him.

'All generous spirits, he observes, hate compulsion. Upon this
observation he dwells; but regrets, that he is likely to owe all his
hopes to this compulsion; this injudicious compulsion, he justly calls
it; and none to my esteem for him. Although he presumes upon some
merit--in this implicit regard to my will--in the bearing the daily
indignities offered not only to him, but to his relations, by my
brother--in the nightly watchings, his present indisposition makes him
mention, or he had not debased the nobleness of his passion for me, by
such a selfish instance.'

I cannot but say, I am sorry the man is not well.

I am afraid to ask you, my dear, what you would have done, thus
situated. But what I have done, I have done. In a word, I wrote, 'That
I would, if possible, give him a meeting to-morrow night, between the
hours of nine and twelve, by the ivy summer-house, or in it, or near the
great cascade, at the bottom of the garden; and would unbolt the door,
that he might come in by his own key. But that, if I found the meeting
impracticable, or should change my mind, I would signify as much by
another line; which he must wait for until it were dark.'

TUESDAY, ELEVEN O'CLOCK.

I am just returned from depositing my billet. How diligent is this man!
It is plain he was in waiting: for I had walked but a few paces, after I
had deposited it, when, my heart misgiving me, I returned, to have taken
it back, in order to reconsider it as I walked, and whether I should or
should not let it go. But I found it gone.

In all probability, there was but a brick wall, of a few inches thick,
between Mr. Lovelace and me, at the very time I put the letter under the
brick!

I am come back dissatisfied with myself. But I think, my dear, there
can be no harm in meeting