Thus began an acquaintance equally fatal to my peace of mind and reputation; and having said that, it would be needless to repeat the circumstances of it, therefore shall only tell you I was so infatuated with my passion, that I never gave myself the trouble to examine into the nature of his pretensions, and lull’d with the vows he made of everlasting love, resented not that he forbore pressing to that ceremony which could alone ensure it:—­yes, my Louisa, I will not wrong him so far as to say he deceived me in this point; for tho’ he protested with the most solemn imprecations that he would never address any either woman than myself, yet he never once mentioned marriage to me.—­Alass! he too well saw into my heart, and that all my faculties were too much his to be able to refuse him any thing:—­even so it proved;—­he triumphed over all in my power to yield;—­nay, was so far subdued, that I neither regretted my loss, nor used any endeavours to conceal it;—­vain of being his at any rate, I thought his love more glory to me than either fame or virtue; and while I was known to enjoy the one, despised whatever censures I incurred for parting with the other:—­in the mall, the play-house, the ring, at Bath or Tunbridge, he was always with me; nor would any thing indeed have been a diversion to me had he been absent.

For upwards of a year I had no reason to complain of his want of assiduity to me, tho’ I have since heard even in that time he had other amours with women who carried them on with more prudence than I was mistress of; but I had afterwards a stabbing proof of his insincerity and inconstancy.

Perceiving a great alteration in his behaviour, that he visited me less frequently, and when he came, the ardours he was accustomed to treat me with still more and more languid and enforced, I upbraided him in terms which, tho’ they shewed more love than resentment, and had he retained any tolerable remains of tenderness for me, must have been rather obliging than the contrary, he affected to take extremely ill, and told me plainly, that nothing was so dear to him as his peace,—­that he was not of a temper to endure reproaches, and that, if I desired the continuance of our amour, I must be satisfied with him as he was.  These cool, and indeed insolent replies made me almost distracted; and beginning to suspect he had some new engagement, I talked to him in a manner as if I had been assured of it:—­he, perhaps, imagining it was so, made no efforts to cure my jealousy, but behaved with so cruel an indifference as confirmed my apprehensions.

Resolving to be convinced whether I really had any rival or not, I employed spies to observe where-ever he went, and to whom; but alass, there required little pains to acquire the intelligence I fought.—­I was soon informed that he was every day with the daughter of a little mechanic;—­that he made her very rich presents, procured a commission in the army for one of her brothers, and in fine, that he was as much devoted to her as a man of his inconstant temper could be to any woman.