This attempt, so resolutely made, alarmed me not a little.

Mrs. Sinclair and her nymphs, are much more concerned; because of the reputation of their house as they call it, having received some insults (broken windows threatened) to make them produce the young creature who cried out.

While the mobbish inquisitors were in the height of their office, the women came running up to me, to know what they should do; a constable being actually fetched.

Get the constable into the parlour, said I, with three or four of the forwardest of the mob, and produce one of the nymphs, onion-eyed, in a moment, with disordered head-dress and handkerchief, and let her own herself the person:  the occasion, a female skirmish:  but satisfied with the justice done her.  Then give a dram or two to each fellow, and all will be well.

ELEVEN O’CLOCK.

All done as I advised; and all is well.

Mrs. Sinclair wishes she had never seen the face of so skittish a lady; and she and Sally are extremely pressing with me, to leave the perverse beauty to their breaking, as they call it, for four or five days.  But I cursed them into silence; only ordering double precaution for the future.

Polly, though she consoled the dear perverse one all she could, when with her, insists upon it to me, that nothing but terror will procure me tolerable usage.

Dorcas was challenged by the women upon her tears.  She owned them real.  Said she was ashamed of herself:  but could not help it.  So sincere, so unyielding a grief, in so sweet a lady!—­

The women laughed at her; but I bid her make no apologies for her tears, nor mind their laughing.  I was glad to see them so ready.  Good use might be made of such strangers.  In short, I would not have her indulge them often, and try if it were not possible to gain her lady’s confidence by her concern for her.

She said that her lady did take kind notice of them to her; and was glad to see such tokens of humanity in her.

Well then, said I, your part, whether any thing come of it or not, is to be tender-hearted.  It can do no harm, if no good.  But take care you are not too suddenly, or too officiously compassionate.

So Dorcas will be a humane, good sort of creature, I believe, very quickly with her lady.  And as it becomes women to be so, and as my beloved is willing to think highly of her own sex; it will the more readily pass with her.

I thought to have had one trial (having gone so far) for cohabitation.  But what hope can there be of succeeding?—­She is invincible!—­Against all my motions, against all my conceptions, (thinking of her as a woman, and in the very bloom of her charms,) she is absolutely invincible.  My whole view, at the present, is to do her legal justice, if I can but once more get her out of her altitudes.

The consent of such a woman must make her ever new, ever charming.  But astonishing!  Can the want of a church-ceremony make such a difference!