f perfect tranquility
when he waked about noon. The remembrance of what had passed overwhelmed
him with mortification. Emilia's invectives still sounded in his ears.
And, while he deeply resented her disdain, he could not help admiring
her spirit, and his heart did homage to her charms.

CHAPTER LXXVII.

He endeavours to Reconcile himself to his Mistress, and Expostulates
with the Uncle, who forbids him the House.

In this state of division, he went home to his own lodgings in a chair;
and while he deliberated with himself whether he should relinquish
the pursuit, and endeavour to banish her idea from his breast, or go
immediately and humble himself before his exasperated mistress, and
offer his hand as an atonement for his crime, his servant put in his
hand a packet, which had been delivered by a ticket porter at the
door. He no sooner perceived that the superscription was in Emilia's
handwriting, than he guessed the nature of the contents; and, opening
the seal with disordered eagerness, found the jewels he had given to her
enclosed in a billet, couched in these words:--

"That I may have no cause to reproach myself with having
retained the least memorial of a wretch whom I equally
despise and abhor, I take this opportunity of restoring
these ineffectual instruments of his infamous design upon
the honour of

"Emilia."

His chagrin was so much galled and inflamed at the bitterness of this
contemptuous message, that he gnawed his fingers till the blood ran
over his nails, and even wept with vexation. Sometimes he vowed revenge
against her haughty virtue, and reviled himself for his precipitate
declaration, before his scheme was brought to maturity; then he would
consider her behaviour with reverence and regard, and bow before the
irresistible power of her attractions. In short, his breast was torn by
conflicting passions: love, shame, and remorse, contended with vanity,
ambition, and revenge; and the superiority was still doubtful when
headstrong desire interposed, and decided in favour of an attempt
towards a reconciliation with the offended fair.

Impelled by this motive, he set out in the afternoon for the house of
her uncle, not without hopes of that tender enjoyment, which never fails
to attend an accommodation betwixt two lovers of taste and sensibility.
Though the consciousness of his trespass encumbered him with an air of
awkward confusion, he was too confident of