d, and when
he arose he left her there sound asleep: his conversation at table would
have been very brisk, if Mrs. Wetenhall had been as great a proficient
in divinity, or as great a lover of controversy, as he was; but being
neither learned in the former, nor desirous of the latter, silence
reigned at their table, as absolutely as at a refectory.

She had often expressed a great desire to see London; but though they
were only distant a very short day's journey from it, she had never been
able to satisfy her curiosity: it was not therefore without reason,
that she grew weary of the life she was forced to lead at Peckham. The
melancholy retired situation of the place was to her insupportable;
and as she had the folly, incident to many other women, of believing
sterility to be a kind of reproach, she was very much hurt to see
that she might fall under that suspicion; for she was persuaded, that
although heaven had denied her children, she nevertheless had all the
necessary requisites on her part, if it had been the will of the Lord.
This had occasioned her to make some reflections, and then to reason
upon those reflections; as for instance, that since her husband
chose rather to devote himself to his studies, than to the duties of
matrimony, to turn over musty old books, rather than attend to the
attractions of beauty, and to gratify his own pleasures, rather than
those of his wife, it might be permitted her to relieve some necessitous
lover, in neighbourly charity, provided she could do it conscientiously,
and to direct her inclinations in so just a, manner, that the evil
spirit should have no concern in it. Mr. Wetenhall, a zealous partisan
for the doctrine of the casuists, would not perhaps have approved of
these decisions; but he was not consulted.

The greatest misfortune was, that neither solitary Peckham nor its
sterile neighbourhood, presented any expedients, either for the
execution of the afore-mentioned design, or for the relief of poor Mrs.
Wetenhall: she was visibly pining away, when, through fear of dying
either with solitude or of want, she had recourse to Miss Hamilton's
commiseration.

Their first acquaintance was formed at Paris, whither Mr. Wetenhall had
taken his wife half a year after they were married, on a journey thither
to buy books: Miss Hamilton, who from that very time greatly pitied her,
consented to pass some time in the country with her, in hopes by that
visit to deliver her, for a short