oths; to bid a shilling more, and haggle with them; and then he
made more errands, and so continued to have such petty business to do,
that I should be sure to stay a good while.

When he had given me my errands, he told them a long story of a visit
he was going to make to a family they all knew, and where was to be
such-and-such gentlemen, and how merry they were to be, and very
formally asks his sisters to go with him, and they as formally excused
themselves, because of company that they had notice was to come and
visit them that afternoon; which, by the way, he had contrived on
purpose.

He had scarce done speaking to them, and giving me my errand, but his
man came up to tell him that Sir W---- H----'s coach stopped at the
door; so he runs down, and comes up again immediately. 'Alas!' says he
aloud, 'there's all my mirth spoiled at once; sir W---- has sent his
coach for me, and desires to speak with me upon some earnest business.'
It seems this Sir W---- was a gentleman who lived about three miles out
of town, to whom he had spoken on purpose the day before, to lend him
his chariot for a particular occasion, and had appointed it to call for
him, as it did, about three o'clock.

Immediately he calls for his best wig, hat, and sword, and ordering his
man to go to the other place to make his excuse-- that was to say, he
made an excuse to send his man away--he prepares to go into the coach.
As he was going, he stopped a while, and speaks mighty earnestly to me
about his business, and finds an opportunity to say very softly to me,
'Come away, my dear, as soon as ever you can.' I said nothing, but
made a curtsy, as if I had done so to what he said in public. In about
a quarter of an hour I went out too; I had no dress other than before,
except that I had a hood, a mask, a fan, and a pair of gloves in my
pocket; so that there was not the least suspicion in the house. He
waited for me in the coach in a back-lane, which he knew I must pass
by, and had directed the coachman whither to go, which was to a certain
place, called Mile End, where lived a confidant of his, where we went
in, and where was all the convenience in the world to be as wicked as
we pleased.

When we were together he began to talk very gravely to me, and to tell
me he did not bring me there to betray me; that his passion for me
would not suffer him to abuse me; that he resolved to marry me as soon
as he came to his estate; that in the meantime, if I