her to go back to theirs; and the still more execrable
attempt, to propose to her a man who would pay the debt; a snare, I make
no question, laid for her despairing and resenting heart by that devilish
Sally, (thinking her, no doubt, a woman,) in order to ruin her with me;
and to provoke me, in a fury, to give her up to their remorseless
cruelty; are outrages, that, to express myself in her style, I never can,
never will forgive.

But as to thy opinion, and the two women's at Smith's, that her heart is
broken! that is the true women's language: I wonder how thou camest into
it: thou who hast seen and heard of so many female deaths and revivals.

I'll tell thee what makes against this notion of theirs.

Her time of life, and charming constitution: the good she ever delighted
to do, and fancified she was born to do; and which she may still continue
to do, to as high a degree as ever; nay, higher: since I am no sordid
varlet, thou knowest: her religious turn: a turn that will always teach
her to bear inevitable evils with patience: the contemplation upon her
last noble triumph over me, and over the whole crew; and upon her
succeeding escape from us all: her will unviolated: and the inward pride
of having not deserved the treatment she has met with.

How is it possible to imagine, that a woman, who has all these
consolations to reflect upon, will die of a broken heart?

On the contrary, I make no doubt, but that, as she recovers from the
dejection into which this last scurvy villany (which none but wretches
of her own sex could have been guilty of) has thrown her, returning love
will re-enter her time-pacified mind: her thoughts will then turn once
more on the conjugal pivot: of course she will have livelier notions in
her head; and these will make her perform all her circumvolutions with
ease and pleasure; though not with so high a degree of either, as if the
dear proud rogue could have exalted herself above the rest of her sex, as
she turned round.

Thou askest, on reciting the bitter invectives that the lady made against
thy poor friend, (standing before her, I suppose, with thy fingers in thy
mouth,) What couldst thou say FOR me?

Have I not, in my former letters, suggested an hundred things, which a
friend, in earnest to vindicate or excuse a friend, might say on such an
occasion?

But now to current topics, and the present state of matters here.--It is
true, as my servant told thee, that Miss Howe had engaged