ost, and set out in the night, animated by the
most tender and flattering wishes, so that, in less than no time almost,
in comparison with the distance and the badness of the roads, he had
travelled a hundred and fifty tedious miles at the last stage he
prudently dismissed the post-boy. It was not yet daylight, and
therefore, for fear of the rocks and precipices mentioned in her letter,
he proceeded with tolerable discretion, considering he was in love.

By this means he fortunately escaped all the dangerous places, and,
according to his instructions, alighted at a little hut adjoining to the
park wall. The place was not magnificent; but, as he only wanted rest,
it did well enough for that: he did not wish for daylight, and was even
still less desirous of being seen; wherefore, having shut himself up in
this obscure retreat, he fell into a profound sleep, and did not wake
until noon. As he was particularly hungry when he awoke, he ate and
drank heartily: and, as he was the neatest man at court, and was expected
by the neatest lady in England, he spent the remainder of the day in
dressing himself, and in making all those preparations which the time and
place permitted, without deigning once to look around him, or to ask his
landlord a single question. At last the orders he expected with great
impatience were brought him, in the beginning of the evening, by a
servant, who, attending him as a guide, after having led him for about
half an hour in the dirt, through a park of vast extent, brought him at
last into a garden, into which a little door opened: he was posted
exactly opposite to this door, by which, in a short time, he was to be
introduced to a more agreeable situation; and here his conductor left
him. The night advanced, but the door never opened.

Though the winter was almost over, the cold weather seemed only to be
beginning: he was dirtied up to his knees in mud, and soon perceived that
if he continued much longer in this garden it would all be frozen. This
beginning of a very dark and bitter night would have been unbearable to
any other; but it was nothing to a man who flattered himself to pass the
remainder of it in the height of bliss. However, he began to wonder at
so many precautions in the absence of a husband his imagination, by a
thousand delicious and tender ideas supported him some time against the
torments of impatience and the inclemency of the weather; but he felt his
imagination, notwithstanding, c