ve a hundred pounds. She brought me word they had no such sum to
spare; I said they might mortgage their house in the loan-office. The
answer to this, after some days, was, that they did not approve the
match; that, on inquiry of Bradford, they had been inform'd the
printing business was not a profitable one; the types would soon be
worn out, and more wanted; that S. Keimer and D. Harry had failed one
after the other, and I should probably soon follow them; and,
therefore, I was forbidden the house, and the daughter shut up.

Whether this was a real change of sentiment or only artifice, on a
supposition of our being too far engaged in affection to retract, and
therefore that we should steal a marriage, which would leave them at
liberty to give or withhold what they pleas'd, I know not; but I
suspected the latter, resented it, and went no more. Mrs. Godfrey
brought me afterward some more favorable accounts of their disposition,
and would have drawn me on again; but I declared absolutely my
resolution to have nothing more to do with that family. This was
resented by the Godfreys; we differ'd, and they removed, leaving me the
whole house, and I resolved to take no more inmates.

But this affair having turned my thoughts to marriage, I look'd round
me and made overtures of acquaintance in other places; but soon found
that, the business of a printer being generally thought a poor one, I
was not to expect money with a wife, unless with such a one as I should
not otherwise think agreeable. In the mean time, that
hard-to-be-governed passion of youth hurried me frequently into
intrigues with low women that fell in my way, which were attended with
some expense and great inconvenience, besides a continual risque to my
health by a distemper which of all things I dreaded, though by great
good luck I escaped it. A friendly correspondence as neighbors and old
acquaintances had continued between me and Mrs. Read's family, who all
had a regard for me from the time of my first lodging in their house.
I was often invited there and consulted in their affairs, wherein I
sometimes was of service. I piti'd poor Miss Read's unfortunate
situation, who was generally dejected, seldom cheerful, and avoided
company. I considered my giddiness and inconstancy when in London as
in a great degree the cause of her unhappiness, tho' the mother was
good enough to think the fault more her own than mine, as she had
prevented our marrying before I we