ateful one, in its touch, in that part where its touch is so
exquisitely affecting. Applying it then to the minute opening, for such
at that age it certainly was, I met with too much good will, I felt with
too great a rapture of pleasure the first insertion of it, to heed much
the pain that followed: I thought nothing too dear to pay for this the
richest treat of the sense; so that, split up, torn, bleeding, mangled
I was still superiorly pleased, and hugged the author of all this
delicious ruin. But when, soon after, he made his second attack, sore as
every thing was, the smart was soon put away by the sovereign cordial;
all my soft complainings were silenced, and the pain melting fast away
into pleasure. I abandoned myself over to all its transports, and gave
it the full possession of my whole body and soul; for now all thought
was at an end with me; I lived in what I felt only. And who could
describe those feelings, those agitations, yet exalted by the charm of
their novelty and surprise? when that part of me which had so hungered
for the dear morsel that now so delightfully crammed, forced all my
vital sensations to fix their home there, during the stay of my beloved
guest; who too soon paid me for his hearty welcome, in a dissolvent,
richer far than that I have heard of some queen treating her paramour
with, in liquified pearl, and ravishingly poured into me, where, now
myself too much melted to give it a dry reception, I hailed it with the
warmest confluence on my side, amidst all those ecstatic raptures, not
unfamiliar I presume to this good company. Thus, however, I arrived at
the very top of all my wishes, by an accident unexpected indeed, but
not so wonderful; for this young gentleman was just arrived in town from
college, and came familiarly to his mother at her apartment, where he
had once before been, though, by mere chance. I had not seen him: so
that we knew one another by hearing only; and finding me stretched on
his mother's bed, he readily concluded from her description, who it was.
The rest you know.

"This affair had however no ruinous consequences, the young gentleman
escaping then, and many more times undiscovered. But the warmth of my
constitution, that made the pleasures of love a kind of necessary of
life to me, having betrayed me into indiscretions fatal to my private
fortune, I fell at length to the public; from which, it is probable, I
might have met with the worst of ruin, if my better fate h