with me a faithful Servant, who had been also
my Mothers Maid, to be present at the Ceremony. When that was over I
demanded a Certificate, signed by the Minister, my Husband, and the
Servant I just now spoke of. After our Nuptials, we conversed together
very familiarly in the same House; but the Restraints we were
generally under, and the Interviews we had, being stolen and
interrupted, made our Behaviour to each other have rather the
impatient Fondness which is visible in Lovers, than the regular and
gratified Affection which is to be observed in Man and Wife. This
Observation made the Father very anxious for his Son, and press him to
a Match he had in his Eye for him. To relieve my Husband from this
Importunity, and conceal the Secret of our Marriage, which I had
reason to know would not be long in my power in Town, it was resolved
that I should retire into a remote Place in the Country, and converse
under feigned Names by Letter. We long continued this Way of Commerce;
and I with my Needle, a few Books, and reading over and over my
Husbands Letters, passed my Time in a resigned Expectation of better
Days. Be pleased to take notice, that within four Months after I left
my Husband I was delivered of a Daughter, who died within few Hours
after her Birth. This Accident, and the retired Manner of Life I led,
gave criminal Hopes to a neighbouring Brute of a Country Gentle-man,
whose Folly was the Source of all my Affliction. This Rustick is one
of those rich Clowns, who supply the Want of all manner of Breeding by
the Neglect of it, and with noisy Mirth, half Understanding, and ample
Fortune, force themselves upon Persons and Things, without any Sense
of Time and Place. The poor ignorant People where I lay conceal'd, and
now passed for a Widow, wondered I could be so shy and strange, as
they called it, to the Squire; and were bribed by him to admit him
whenever he thought fit. I happened to be sitting in a little Parlour
which belonged to my own Part of the House, and musing over one of the
fondest of my Husbands Letters, in which I always kept the
Certificate of my Marriage, when this rude Fellow came in, and with
the nauseous Familiarity of such unbred Brutes, snatched the Papers
out of my Hand. I was immediately under so great a Concern, that I
threw my self at his Feet, and begged of him to return them. He with
the same odious Pretence to Freedom and G