where my name is better known than in the coffee-houses and St. James's.

'Two years since my uncle died, leaving me a pretty estate in the county
of Kent; and being at Tunbridge Wells last summer, after my mourning was
over, and on the look-out, if truth must be told, for some young lady
who would share with me the solitude of my great Kentish house, and be
kind to my tenantry (for whom a woman can do a great deal more good than
the best-intentioned man can), I was greatly fascinated by a young lady
of London, who was the toast of all the company at the Wells. Everyone
knows Saccharissa's beauty; and I think, Mr. Spectator, no one better
than herself.

'My table-book informs me that I danced no less than seven-and-twenty
sets with her at the assembly. I treated her to the fiddles twice. I was
admitted on several days to her lodging, and received by her with a
great deal of distinction, and, for a time, was entirely her slave. It
was only when I found, from common talk of the company at the Wells, and
from narrowly watching one, who I once thought of asking the most
sacred question a man can put to a woman, that I became aware how unfit
she was to be a country gentleman's wife; and that this fair creature
was but a heartless worldly jilt, playing with affections that she never
meant to return, and, indeed, incapable of returning them. 'Tis
admiration such women want, not love that touches them; and I can
conceive, in her old age, no more wretched creature than this lady will
be, when her beauty hath deserted her, when her admirers have left her,
and she hath neither friendship nor religion to console her.

'Business calling me to London, I went to St. James's Church last
Sunday, and there opposite me sat my beauty of the Wells. Her behaviour
during the whole service was so pert, languishing and absurd; she
flirted her fan, and ogled and eyed me in a manner so indecent, that I
was obliged to shut my eyes, so as actually not to see her, and whenever
I opened them beheld hers (and very bright they are) still staring at
me. I fell in with her afterwards at Court, and at the playhouse; and
here nothing would satisfy her but she must elbow through the crowd and
speak to me, and invite me to the assembly, which she holds at her
house, nor very far from Ch--r--ng Cr--ss.

'Having made her a promise to attend, of course I kept my promise; and
found the young widow in the midst of a half-dozen of card-tables, and a
crowd of wi