esperate, I resolved to add to my
former fault, by giving directions that she should not either go or
correspond out of the house, till I returned from M. Hall; well knowing,
that if she were at full liberty, I must for ever lose her.

That this constraint had so much incensed her, that although I wrote no
less than four different letters, I could not procure a single word in
answer; though I pressed her but for four words to signify the day and
the church.

I referred to my two cousins to vouch for me the extraordinary methods I
took to send messengers to town, though they knew not the occasion; which
now I told them was this.

I acquainted them, that I even had wrote to you, Jack, and to another
gentleman of whom I thought she had a good opinion, to attend her, in
order to press for her compliance; holding myself in readiness the last
day, at Salt-hill, to meet the messenger they should send, and proceed to
London, if his message were favourable. But that, before they could
attend her, she had found means to fly away once more: and is now, said
I, perched perhaps somewhere under Lady Betty's window at Glenham-hall;
and there, like the sweet Philomela, a thorn in her breast, warbles forth
her melancholy complaints against her barbarous Tereus.

Lady Betty declared that she was not with her; nor did she know where she
was. She should be, she added, the most welcome guest to her that she
ever received.

In truth, I had a suspicion that she was already in their knowledge, and
taken into their protection; for Lady Sarah I imagined incapable of being
roused to this spirit by a letter only from Miss Harlowe, and that not
directed to herself; she being a very indolent and melancholy woman. But
her sister, I find had wrought her up to it: for Lady Betty is as
officious and managing a woman as Mrs. Howe; but of a much more generous
and noble disposition--she is my aunt, Jack.

I supposed, I said, that her Ladyship might have a private direction
where to send to her. I spoke as I wished: I would have given the world
to have heard that she was inclined to cultivate the interest of any of
my family.

Lady Betty answered that she had no direction but what was in the letter;
which she had scratched out, and which, it was probable, was only a
temporary one, in order to avoid me: otherwise she would hardly have
directed an answer to be left at an inn. And she was of opinion, that to
apply to Miss Howe would be the only ce