ld be so totally diverted from all my
favourite purposes, as to propose to marry her before I went to town, in
order to put it out of my own power to resume them.

When thou knowest this, wilt thou not think that my black angel plays me
booty, and has taken it into his head to urge me on to the indissoluble
tie, that he might be more sure of me (from the complex transgressions
to which he will certainly stimulate me, when wedded) than perhaps
he thought he could be from the simple sins, in which I have so long
allowed myself, that they seem to have the plea of habit?

Thou wilt be still the more surprised, when I tell thee, that there
seems to be a coalition going forward between the black angels and the
white ones; for here has her's induced her, in one hour, and by one
retrograde accident, to acknowledge what the charming creature never
before acknowledged, a preferable favour for me. She even avows an
intention to be mine.--Mine! without reformation-conditions!--She
permits me to talk of love to her!--of the irrevocable ceremony!--Yet,
another extraordinary! postpones that ceremony; chooses to set out for
London; and even to go to the widow's in town.

Well, but how comes all this about? methinks thou askest.--Thou,
Lovelace, dealest in wonders, yet aimest not at the marvellous!--How did
all this come about?

I will tell thee--I was in danger of losing my charmer for ever! She was
soaring upward to her native skies! She was got above earth, by means
too, of the earth-born! And something extraordinary was to be done to
keep her with us sublunaries. And what so effectually as the soothing
voice of Love, and the attracting offer of matrimony from a man
not hated, can fix the attention of the maiden heart, aching with
uncertainty, and before impatient of the questionable question?

This, in short, was the case: while she was refusing all manner of
obligation to me, keeping me at haughty distance, in hopes that her
cousin Morden's arrival would soon fix her in a full and absolute
independence of me--disgusted, likewise, at her adorer, for holding
himself the reins of his own passions, instead of giving them up to her
controul--she writes a letter, urging an answer to a letter before sent,
for her apparel, her jewels, and some gold, which she had left behind
her; all which was to save her pride from obligation, and to promote the
independence her heart was set upon. And what followed but a shocking
answer, made still