dear."--"You left off, Sir, with
acquitting me for breaking out into that flood of tears, which
occasioned your abrupt departure. But, dear Sir, will you be pleased,
to satisfy me about that affecting information, of your intention and
my lady's to live at Tunbridge together?"

"'Tis absolute malice and falsehood. Our intimacy had not proceeded
so far; and, thoughtless as my sister's letters suppose the lady, she
would have spurned at such a proposal, I dare say."

"Well, but then, Sir, as to the expression to her uncle, that she had
rather have been a certain gentleman's second wife?"

"I believe she might, in a passion, say something like it to him: he
had been teazing her (from the time that I held an argument in favour
of that foolish topic _polygamy_, in his company and his niece's,
and in that of her sister and the Viscount,) with cautions against
conversing with a man, who, having, as he was pleased to say behind my
back, married beneath him, wanted to engage the affections of a lady
of birth, in order to recover, by doubling that fault upon her, his
lost reputation.

"She despised his insinuation enough to answer him, that she thought
my arguments in behalf of _polygamy_ were convincing. This set him a
raving, and he threw some coarse reflections upon her, which could not
be repeated, if one may guess at them, by her being unable to tell
me them; and then to vex him more, and to revenge herself, she said
something like what was reported: which was handle enough for her
uncle; who took care to propagate it with an indiscretion peculiar to
himself; for I heard it in three different companies, before I knew
any thing of it from herself; and when I did, it was so repeated, as
you, my dear, would hardly have censured her for it, the provocation
considered."

"Well, but then, dear Sir, there is nothing at all amiss, at this
rate, in the correspondence between my lady and you?"

"Not on her side, I dare say, if her ladyship can be excused to
punctilio, and for having a greater esteem for a married man, than
he can deserve, or than may be strictly defended to a person of your
purity and niceness."

"Well, Sir, this is very noble in you. I love to hear the gentlemen
generous in points where the honour of our sex is concerned. But pray.
Sir, what then was there on _your_ side, in that matter, that made you
give me so patient and so kind a hearing?"

"Now, my dear, you come to the point: at first it was nothing i