r with the bottle,
until her distinguishing faculties should be overpowered, he promoted
a quick circulation. She did him justice, without any manifest signs of
inebriation, so long, that his own eyes began to reel in the sockets,
and he found that before his scheme could be accomplished, he should
be effectually unfitted for all the purposes of love. He therefore had
recourse to his valet-de-chambre, who understood the hint as soon as it
was given, and readily undertook to perform the part of which his master
had played the prelude. This affair being settled to his satisfaction,
and the night at odds with morning, he took an opportunity of imparting
to the ear of this aged dulcinea a kind whisper, importing a promise of
visiting her when his sister should be retired to her own chamber, and
an earnest desire of leaving her door unlocked.

This agreeable intimation being communicated, he conveyed a caution of
the same nature to Mrs. Hornbeck, as he led her to her apartment; and
darkness and silence no sooner prevailed in the house, than he and his
trusted squire set out on their different voyages. Everything would have
succeeded according to their wish, had not the valet-de-chambre suffered
himself to fall asleep at the side of his inamorata, and, in the
agitation of a violent dream, exclaimed in a voice so unlike that of her
supposed adorer, that she distinguished the difference at once. Waking
him with a pinch and a loud shriek, she threatened to prosecute him
for a rape, and reviled him with all the epithets her rage and
disappointment could suggest.

The Frenchman, finding himself detected, behaved with great temper and
address: he begged she would compose herself, on account of her own
reputation, which was extremely dear to him; protesting that he had a
most inviolable esteem for her person. His representations had weight
with the duenna, who, upon recollection, comprehended the whole
affair, and thought it would be her interest to bring matters to an
accommodation. She therefore admitted the apologies of her bed-fellow,
provided he would promise to atone by marriage for the injury she had
sustained; and in this particular he set her heart at ease by repeated
vows, which he uttered with surprising volubility, though without any
intention to perform the least title of their contents.

Peregrine, who had been alarmed by her exclamation, and ran to the
door with a view of interposing according to the emergency of th