[day, I have done with thee!] she
may not yield to nightly surprises? This is still the burden of my song,
I can marry her when I will. And if I do, after prevailing (whether by
surprise, or by reluctant consent) whom but myself shall I have injured?

***

It is now eleven o'clock. She will see me as soon as she can, she tells
Polly Horton, who made her a tender visit, and to whom she is less
reserved than to any body else. Her emotion, she assures her, was not
owing to perverseness, to nicety, to ill humour; but to weakness of
heart. She has not strength of mind sufficient, she says, to enable her
to support her condition.

Yet what a contradiction!--Weakness of heart, says she, with such a
strength of will!--O Belford! she is a lion-hearted lady, in every case
where her honour, her punctilio rather, calls for spirit. But I have had
reason more than once in her case, to conclude, that the passions of the
gentle, slower to be moved than those of the quick, are the most flaming,
the most irresistible, when raised.--Yet her charming body is not equally
organized. The unequal partners pull two ways; and the divinity within
her tears her silken frame. But had the same soul informed a masculine
body, never would there have been a truer hero.

MONDAY, TWO O'CLOCK.

Not yet visible!--My beloved is not well. What expectations had she from
my ardent admiration of her!--More rudeness than revenge apprehended.
Yet, how my soul thirsts for revenge upon both these ladies? I must have
recourse to my master-strokes. This cursed project of Miss Howe and her
Mrs. Townsend (if I cannot contrive t render it abortive) will be always
a sword hanging over my head. Upon every little disobligations my
beloved will be for taking wing; and the pains I have taken to deprive
her of every other refuge or protection, in order to make her absolutely
dependent upon me, will be all thrown away. But perhaps I shall find out
a smuggler to counterplot Miss Howe.

Thou remembrest the contention between the Sun and the North-wind, in the
fable; which should first make an honest traveller throw off his cloak.

Boreas began first. He puffed away most vehemently; and often made the
poor fellow curve and stagger; but with no other effect, than to cause
him to wrap his surtout the closer about him.

But when it came to Phoebus's turn, he so played upon the traveller with
his beams, that he made him first unbutton, and then throw it qu