e uninvaded in my retirements. I hope you do not think me so
weak a creature (novice as you have found me in a very capital instance)
as to be fond of occasions to hear your fond speeches, especially as no
differing circumstances require your over-frequent visits; nor that I am
to be addressed to, as if I thought hourly professions needful to assure
me of your honour.

He seemed a little disconcerted.

You know, Mr. Lovelace, proceeded I, why I am so earnest for your
absence. It is, that I may appear to the world independent of you; and
in hopes, by that means, to find it less difficult to set on foot a
reconciliation with my friends. And now let me add, (in order to make
you easier as to the terms of that hoped-for reconciliation,) that since
I find I have the good fortune to stand so well with your relations, I
will, from time to time, acquaint you, by letter, when you are absent,
with every step I shall take, and with every overture that shall be made
to me: but not with an intention to render myself accountable to you,
neither, as to my acceptance or non-acceptance of those overtures. They
know that I have a power given me by my grandfather's will, to bequeath
the estate he left me, with other of his bounties, in a way that may
affect them, though not absolutely from them. This consideration, I
hope, will procure me some from them, when their passion subsides, and
when they know I am independent of you.

Charming reasoning!--And let him tell me, that the assurance I had
given him was all he wished for. It was more than he could ask. What a
happiness to have a woman of honour and generosity to depend upon! Had
he, on his first entrance into the world, met with such a one, he had
never been other than a man of strict virtue.--But all, he hoped,
was for the best; since, in that case, he had never perhaps had the
happiness he now had in view; because his relations had always been
urging him to marry; and that before he had the honour to know me. And
now, as he had not been so bad as some people's malice reported him to
be, he hoped he should have near as much merit in his repentance, as
if he had never erred.--A fine rakish notion and hope! And too much
encouraged, I doubt, my dear, by the generality of our sex!

This brought on a more serious question or two. You'll see by it what a
creature an unmortified libertine is.

I asked him, if he knew what he had said, alluded to a sentence in the
best of books, That the