hope no mischief will happen on the road.--I hope these violent
spirits will not meet.

Every one is waiting for me.--Pardon me, my best, my kindest friend,
that I return your Norris. In these more promising prospects, I cannot
have occasion for your favour. Besides, I have some hope that with my
clothes they will send me the money I wrote for, although it is denied
me in the letter. If they do not, and if I should have occasion, I can
but signify my wants to so ready a friend. And I have promised to be
obliged only to you. But I had rather methinks you should have it still
to say, if challenged, that nothing of this nature has been either
requested or done. I say this with a view entirely to my future hopes
of recovering your mother's favour, which, next to that of my own father
and mother, I am most solicitous to recover.

I must acquaint you wit one thing more, notwithstanding my hurry; and
that is, that Mr. Lovelace offered either to attend me to Lord M.'s, or
to send for his chaplain, yesterday. He pressed me to consent to this
proposal most earnestly, and even seemed desirous rather to have the
ceremony pass here than at London: for when there, I had told him, it
was time enough to consider of so weighty and important a matter. Now,
upon the receipt of your kind, your consolatory letter, methinks I
could almost wish it had been in my power to comply with his earnest
solicitations. But this dreadful letter has unhinged my whole frame.
Then some little punctilio surely is necessary. No preparation made.
No articles drawn. No license ready. Grief so extreme: no pleasure in
prospect, nor so much as in wish--O my dear, who could think of entering
into so solemn an engagement? Who, so unprepared, could seem to be so
ready?

If I could flatter myself that my indifference to all the joys of this
life proceeded from proper motives, not rather from the disappointments
and mortifications my pride has met with, how much rather, I think,
should I choose to be wedded to my shroud than to any man on earth!

Indeed I have at present no pleasure but in your friendship. Continue
that to me, I beseech you. If my heart rises hereafter to a capacity of
more, it must be built on that foundation.

My spirits sink again on setting out. Excuse this depth of vapourish
dejection, which forbids me even hope, the cordial that keeps life
from stagnating, and which never was denied me till within these
eight-and-forty hours.

But 'tis t