Mr. SPECTATOR,

I have no other Means but this to express my Thanks to one Man, and my Resentment against another.  My Circumstances are as follows.  I have been for five Years last past courted by a Gentleman of greater Fortune than I ought to expect, as the Market for Women goes.  You must to be sure have observed People who live in that sort of Way, as all their Friends reckon it will be a Match, and are marked out by all the World for each other.  In this View we have been regarded for some Time, and I have above these three Years loved him tenderly.  As he is very careful of his Fortune, I always thought he lived in a near Manner to lay up what he thought was wanting in my Fortune to make up what he might expect in another.  Within few Months I have observed his Carriage very much altered, and he has affected a certain Air of getting me alone, and talking with a mighty Profusion of passionate Words, How I am not to be resisted longer, how irresistible his Wishes are, and the like.  As long as I have been acquainted with him, I could not on such Occasions say down-right to him, You know you may make me yours when you please.  But the other Night he with great Frankness and Impudence explained to me, that he thought of me only as a Mistress.  I answered this Declaration as it deserv’d; upon which he only doubled the Terms on which he proposed my yielding.  When my Anger heightned upon him, he told me he was sorry he had made so little Use of the unguarded Hours we had been together so remote from Company, as indeed, continued he, so we are at present.  I flew from him to a neighbouring Gentlewoman’s House, and tho’ her Husband was in the Room, threw my self on a Couch, and burst into a Passion of Tears.  My Friend desired her Husband to leave the Room.  But, said he, there is something so extraordinary in this, that I will partake in the Affliction; and be it what it will, she is so much your Friend, that she knows she may command what Services I can do her.  The Man sate down by me, and spoke so like a Brother, that I told him my whole Affliction.  He spoke of the Injury done me with so much Indignation, and animated me against the Love he said he saw I had for the Wretch who would have betrayed me, with so much Reason and Humanity to my Weakness, that I doubt not of my Perseverance.  His Wife and he are my Comforters, and I am under no more Restraint in their Company than if I were alone; and I doubt not but in a small time Contempt and Hatred will take Place of the Remains of Affection to a Rascal.

  I am

  SIR,

  Your affectionate Reader,

  Dorinda.

  Mr. SPECTATOR,