Yet, would she say again, if he has indeed subdued that passion;—­if he resolves to think of me as before he entertained it; if I were certain he would receive me as a child, how great would be, the blessing!

This confederation had so much effect on her, that she was half determined to comply with the advertisement; but when she remembered to have read that where love is sincere and violent, it requires a length of time to be erased, and that those possessed of it are incapable of knowing even their own strength, and, as he had said to her himself, that there was no answering for the consequences, she grew instantly of another mind, and thought that putting herself again into the power of such a passion was running too great a hazard.

The continual agitations of her mind, joined to want of air, a quite different way of life, and perhaps fitting more closely to work than she had been accustomed, threw her at length into a kind of languishing indisposition, which, tho’ it did not confine her to her bed, occasioned a loss of appetite, and frequent faintings, which were very alarming to her.  Mrs. C——­ge was extremely concerned to observe this change in her, and would have the opinion of her own physician, who said that she had symptoms of an approaching consumption, and that it was absolutely necessary she should be removed into the country for some time.

Louisa readily complied with this advice, not only because she imagined it might be of service for the recovery of her health, but also as it furnished her with a pretence for leaving mrs.  C——­ge’s house, to which she was determined to return no more as a boarder.  The good woman with whom she had lodged at first recommended her to a friend of her’s at Windsor, where she immediately went, and was very kindly received.

CHAP.  IV.

Louisa becomes acquainted with a lady of quality, part of whose adventures are also related, and goes to travel with her.

Change of place affords but small relief to those whose distempers are in the mind:  Louisa carried with her too many perplexing thoughts to be easily shook off; tho’ the queen and court being then at Windsor, she had the opportunity of seeing a great many of the gay world pass daily by her window.—­There also lodged in the same house with her a young widow of quality, who was visited by persons of the first rank; but as she was not of a condition to make one in any of these conversations, she reaped no other satisfaction from them than what the eye afforded.