.

Canniball.

Mr. SPECTATOR,

I have no other Means but this to express my Thanks to one Man, and my
Resentment against another. My Circumstances are as follows. I have
been for five Years last past courted by a Gentleman of greater
Fortune than I ought to expect, as the Market for Women goes. You must
to be sure have observed People who live in that sort of Way, as all
their Friends reckon it will be a Match, and are marked out by all the
World for each other. In this View we have been regarded for some
Time, and I have above these three Years loved him tenderly. As he is
very careful of his Fortune, I always thought he lived in a near
Manner to lay up what he thought was wanting in my Fortune to make up
what he might expect in another. Within few Months I have observed his
Carriage very much altered, and he has affected a certain Air of
getting me alone, and talking with a mighty Profusion of passionate
Words, How I am not to be resisted longer, how irresistible his Wishes
are, and the like. As long as I have been acquainted with him, I could
not on such Occasions say down-right to him, You know you may make me
yours when you please. But the other Night he with great Frankness and
Impudence explained to me, that he thought of me only as a Mistress. I
answered this Declaration as it deserv'd; upon which he only doubled
the Terms on which he proposed my yielding. When my Anger heightned
upon him, he told me he was sorry he had made so little Use of the
unguarded Hours we had been together so remote from Company, as
indeed, continued he, so we are at present. I flew from him to a
neighbouring Gentlewoman's House, and tho' her Husband was in the
Room, threw my self on a Couch, and burst into a Passion of Tears. My
Friend desired her Husband to leave the Room. But, said he, there is
something so extraordinary in this, that I will partake in the
Affliction; and be it what it will, she is so much your Friend, that
she knows she may command what Services I can do her. The Man sate
down by me, and spoke so like a Brother, that I told him my whole
Affliction. He spoke of the Injury done me with so much Indignation,
and animated me against the Love he said he saw I had for the Wretch
who would have betrayed me, with so much Reason and Humanity to my
Weakness, that I doubt not of my Perseverance. His Wife and he are my
Comforters, and I am under no mo