ature get over the
first tests, in order to put her to the grand proof, whether once
overcome, she will not be always overcome?

Our mother and her nymphs say, I am a perfect Craven, and no Lovelace:
and so I think. But this is no simpering, smiling charmer, as I have
found others to be, when I have touched upon affecting subjects at a
distance; as once or twice I have tried to her, the mother introducing
them (to make sex palliate the freedom to sex) when only we three
together. She is above the affectation of not seeming to understand you.
She shows by her displeasure, and a fierceness not natural to her eye,
that she judges of an impure heart by an impure mouth, and darts dead at
once even the embryo hopes of an encroaching lover, however distantly
insinuated, before the meaning hint can dawn into double entendre.

By my faith, Jack, as I sit gazing upon her, my whole soul in my eyes,
contemplating her perfections, and thinking, when I have seen her easy
and serene, what would be her thoughts, did she know my heart as well as
I know it; when I behold her disturbed and jealous, and think of the
justness of her apprehensions, and that she cannot fear so much as there
is room for her to fear; my heart often misgives me.

And must, think I, O creature so divinely excellent, and so beloved of my
soul, those arms, those encircling arms, that would make a monarch happy,
be used to repel brutal force; all their strength, unavailingly perhaps,
exerted to repel it, and to defend a person so delicately framed? Can
violence enter into the heart of a wretch, who might entitle himself to
all her willing yet virtuous love, and make the blessings he aspireth
after, her duty to confer?--Begone, villain-purposes! Sink ye all to the
hell that could only inspire ye! And I am then ready to throw myself at
her feet, to confess my villainous designs, to avow my repentance, and
put it out of my power to act unworthily by such an excellence.

How then comes it, that all these compassionate, and, as some would call
them, honest sensibilities go off!--Why, Miss Howe will tell thee: she
says, I am the devil.--By my conscience, I think he has at present a
great share in me.

There's ingenuousness!--How I lay myself open to thee!--But seest thou not,
that the more I say against myself, the less room there is for thee
to take me to task?--O Belford, Belford! I cannot, cannot (at least at
present) I cannot marry.

Then her family, my bi