ous or solitary, if apprehensive of intrusion,
retiring at a nod; approaching me only if I smiled encouragement: steal
into my presence with silence; out of it, if not noticed, on tiptoe. Be
a lady easy to all my pleasures, and valuing those most who most
contributed to them; only sighing in private, that it was not herself at
the time. Thus of old did the contending wives of the honest patriarchs;
each recommending her handmaid to her lord, as she thought it would
oblige him, and looking upon the genial product as her own.

The gentle Waller says, women are born to be controuled. Gentle as he
was, he knew that. A tyrant husband makes a dutiful wife. And why do
the sex love rakes, but because they know how to direct their uncertain
wills, and manage them?

***

Another agreeable conversation. The day of days the subject. As to
fixing a particular one, that need not be done, my charmer says, till the
settlements are completed. As to marrying at my Lord's chapel, the
Ladies of my family present, that would be making a public affair of it;
and the dear creature observed, with regret, that it seemed to be my
Lord's intention to make it so.

It could not be imagined, I said, but that his Lordship's setting out in
a litter, and coming to town, as well as his taste for glare, and the joy
he would take to see me married at last, and to her dear self, would give
it as much the air of a public marriage as if the ceremony were performed
at his own chapel, all the Ladies present.

I cannot, said she, endure the thoughts of a public day. It will carry
with it an air of insult upon my whole family. And for my part, if my
Lord will not take it amiss, [and perhaps he will not, as the motion came
not from himself, but from you, Mr. Lovelace,] I will very willingly
dispense with his Lordship's presence; the rather, as dress and
appearance will then be unnecessary; for I cannot bear to think of
decking my person while my parents are in tears.

How excellent this! Yet do not her parents richly deserve to be in
tears?

See, Belford, with so charming a niceness, we might have been a long time
ago upon the verge of the state, and yet found a great deal to do before
we entered into it.

All obedience, all resignation--no will but her's. I withdrew, and wrote
directly to my Lord; and she not disapproving of it, I sent it away. The
purport as follows; for I took no copy.

'That I was much obliged to his Lordship for h