of service to him, tell
him he may command me either in purse or person. Yet the former with
a freer will than the latter; for how can I leave my goddess? But
I'll issue my commands to my other vassals to attend thy summons.

If ye want head, let me know. If not, my quota, on this occasion, is
money.

LETTER XXXVIII

MR. BELFORD, TO ROBERT LOVELACE, ESQ.
SATURDAY, MAY 20.

Not one word will I reply to such an abandoned wretch, as thou hast shewn
thyself to be in thine of last night. I will leave the lady to the
protection of that Power who only can work miracles; and to her own
merits. Still I have hopes that these will save her.

I will proceed, as thou desirest, to poor Belton's case; and the rather,
as it has thrown me into such a train of thinking upon our past lives,
our present courses, and our future views, as may be of service to us
both, if I can give due weight to the reflections that arise from it.

The poor man made me a visit on Thursday, in this my melancholy
attendance. He began with complaints of his ill health and spirits, his
hectic cough, and his increased malady of spitting blood; and then led to
his story.

A confounded one it is; and which highly aggravates his other maladies:
for it has come out, that his Thomasine, (who, truly, would be new
christened, you know, that her name might be nearer in sound to the
christian name of the man whom she pretended to doat upon) has for many
years carried on an intrigue with a fellow who had been hostler to her
father (an innkeeper at Darking); of whom, at the expense of poor Belton,
she has made a gentleman; and managed it so, that having the art to make
herself his cashier, she has been unable to account for large sums, which
he thought forthcoming at demand, and had trusted to her custody, in
order to pay off a mortgage upon his parental estate in Kent, which his
heart has run upon leaving clear, but which now cannot be done, and will
soon be foreclosed. And yet she has so long passed for his wife, that he
knows not what to resolve upon about her; nor about the two boys he was
so fond of, supposing them to be his; whereas now he begins to doubt his
share in them.

So KEEPING don't do, Lovelace. 'Tis not the eligible wife. 'A man must
keep a woman, said the poor fellow to me, but not his estate!--Two
interests!--Then, my tottering fabric!' pointing to his emaciated
carcass.

We do well to value ourselves upon our libert