from him the least indecent expression, nor saw in
his behaviour to me much to apprehend; saving, I began to fear, that
by his insinuating address, and noble manner, I should be too much in
his power, and too little in my own, if I went on so little doubting,
and so little alarmed, if ever he should avow dishonourable designs.

"I had often lamented, that our sex were prohibited, by the designs
of the other upon their honour, and by the world's censures, from
conversing with the same ease and freedom with gentlemen, as with one
another. And when once I asked myself, to what this conversation
might tend at last? and where the pleasure each seemed to take in the
other's, might possibly end? I resolved to break it off; and told
him my resolution next time I saw him. But he stopped my mouth with a
romantic notion, as I since think it, (though a sorry plea will have
weight in favour of a proposal, to which one has no aversion) of
Platonic love; and we had an intercourse by letters, to the number of
six or eight, I believe, on that and other subjects.

"Yet all this time, I was the less apprehensive, because he always
spoke so tenderly, and even with delight, whenever he mentioned
his lady; and I could not find, that you were at all alarmed at our
acquaintance: for I never scrupled to send my letters, by my own
livery, to your house, sealed with my own seal. At last, indeed, he
began to tell me, that from the sweetest and evenest temper in the
world, you seemed to be leaning towards melancholy, were always in
tears, or shewed you had been weeping, when he came home; and that you
did not make his return to you so agreeable as he used to find it.

"I asked if it were not owing to some alteration in his own temper?
If you might not be uneasy at our acquaintance, and at his frequent
absence from you, and the like? He answered, No; that you were above
disguises, were of a noble and frank nature, and would have hinted it
to him, if you had. This, however, when I began to think seriously of
the matter, gave me but little satisfaction; and I was more and
more convinced, that my honour required it of me, to break off this
intimacy.

"And although I permitted Mr. B. to go with me to Tunbridge, when I
went to take a house there, yet I was uneasy, as he saw. And, indeed,
so was he, though he tarried a day or two longer than he designed, on
account of a little excursion my sister and her lord, and he and I,
made into Sussex, to see a