rmined to do himself justice, and to run you through the body
with his own sword, though you were even in the arms of Miss Temple; and
that it is most scandalous that all the maids of honour should get into
your hands before they can look around them.

"These things, madam, I thought it my duty to acquaint you with: you are
better able to judge than myself, whether what I have now advanced be
true, and I leave it to your own discretion to make what use you think
proper of my advice; but were I in your situation, I would endeavour to
reconcile Lord Rochester and Miss Temple. Once more I recommend to you
to take care that your endeavours to mislead her innocency, in order to
blast his honour, may not come to his knowledge; and do not estrange from
her a man who tenderly loves her, and whose probity is so great, that he
would not even suffer his eyes to wander towards her, if his intention
was not to make her his wife."

Miss Temple observed her promise most faithfully during this discourse:
she did not even utter a single syllable, being seized with such
astonishment and confusion, that she quite lost the use of her tongue.

Miss Hobart and Lord Rochester came up to her, while she was still in
amazement at the wonderful discoveries she had made; things in
themselves, in her opinion, almost incredible, but to the truth of which
she could not refuse her assent, upon examining the evidences and
circumstances on which they were founded. Never was confusion equal to
that with which her whole frame was seized by the foregoing recital.

Rochester and Killegrew took leave of them before she recovered from her
surprise; but as soon as she had regained the free use of her senses, she
hastened back to St. James, without answering a single question that the
other put to her; and having locked herself up in her chamber, the fast
thing she did, was immediately to strip off Miss Hobart's clothes, lest
she should be contaminated by them; for after what she had been told
concerning her, she looked upon her as a monster, dreadful to the
innocence of the fair sex, of whatever sex she might be: she blushed at
the familiarities she had been drawn into with a creature, whose maid was
with child, though she never had been in any other service but hers: she
therefore returned her all her clothes, ordered her servant to bring back
all her own, and resolved never more to have any connection with her.
Miss Hobart, on the other hand, who supposed