self had once profited
by the same, or nearly the same contrivance. Without communicating her
doubts to the father, she resolved to double her attention to the
daughter's future conduct, and keep such a strict eye over the behaviour
of our gallant, that he should find it very difficult, if not impossible,
to elude her observation. For this purpose she took into her pay an old
maiden, of the right sour disposition, who lived in a house opposite to
her own, and directed her to follow the young lady in all her outgoings,
whenever she should receive from the window a certain signal, which the
mother-in-law agreed to make for the occasion. It was not long before
this scheme succeeded to her wish. The door of communication betwixt
Wilhelmina's apartment and the staircase being nailed up by the
jeweller's express order, our adventurer was altogether deprived of those
opportunities he had hitherto enjoyed, and was not at all mortified to
find himself so restricted in a correspondence which began to be tiresome
and disagreeable. But the case was far otherwise with his Dulcinea,
whose passion, the more it was thwarted, raged with greater violence,
like a fire, that, from the attempts that are made to extinguish it,
gathers greater force, and flames with double fury.

Upon the second day of her misfortune, she had written a very tender
billet, lamenting her unhappiness in being deprived of those meetings
which constituted the chief joy of her life, and entreating him to
contrive some means of renewing the delicious commerce in an unsuspected
place. This intimation she proposed to convey privately into the hand of
her lover, during his next visit to the family; but both were so narrowly
eyed by the mother, that she found the execution of her design
impracticable; and next forenoon, on pretence of going to church,
repaired to the house of a companion, who, being also her confidant,
undertook to deliver the billet with her own hand.

The she-dragon employed by her mother, in obedience to the sign which was
displayed from the window immediately put on her veil, and followed
Wilhelmina at a distance, until she saw her fairly housed. She would not
even then return from her excursion, but hovered about in sight of the
door, with a view of making further observations. In less than five
minutes after the young lady disappeared, the scout perceived her coming
out, accompanied by her comrade, from whom she instantly parted, and bent