Father was a very hard worldly Man, and proud; so that there was no reason to believe he would easily be brought to think there was any thing in any Woman’s Person or Character that could ballance the Disadvantage of an unequal Fortune.  In the mean time the Son continued his Application to me, and omitted no Occasion of demonstrating the most disinterested Passion imaginable to me; and in plain direct Terms offer’d to marry me privately, and keep it so till he should be so happy as to gain his Fathers Approbation, or become possessed of his Estate.  I passionately loved him, and you will believe I did not deny such a one what was my Interest also to grant.  However I was not so young, as not to take the Precaution of carrying with me a faithful Servant, who had been also my Mothers Maid, to be present at the Ceremony.  When that was over I demanded a Certificate, signed by the Minister, my Husband, and the Servant I just now spoke of.  After our Nuptials, we conversed together very familiarly in the same House; but the Restraints we were generally under, and the Interviews we had, being stolen and interrupted, made our Behaviour to each other have rather the impatient Fondness which is visible in Lovers, than the regular and gratified Affection which is to be observed in Man and Wife.  This Observation made the Father very anxious for his Son, and press him to a Match he had in his Eye for him.  To relieve my Husband from this Importunity, and conceal the Secret of our Marriage, which I had reason to know would not be long in my power in Town, it was resolved that I should retire into a remote Place in the Country, and converse under feigned Names by Letter.  We long continued this Way of Commerce; and I with my Needle, a few Books, and reading over and over my Husbands Letters, passed my Time in a resigned Expectation of better Days.  Be pleased to take notice, that within four Months after I left my Husband I was delivered of a Daughter, who died within few Hours after her Birth.  This Accident, and the retired Manner of Life I led, gave criminal Hopes to a neighbouring Brute of a Country Gentle-man, whose Folly was the Source of all my Affliction.  This Rustick is one of those rich Clowns, who supply the Want of all manner of Breeding by the Neglect of it, and with noisy Mirth, half Understanding, and ample Fortune, force themselves upon Persons and Things, without any Sense of Time and Place.  The poor ignorant People where I lay conceal’d, and now passed for a Widow, wondered I could be so shy and strange, as they called it, to the Squire; and were bribed by him to admit him whenever he thought fit.  I happened to be sitting in a little Parlour which belonged to my own Part of the House, and musing over one of the fondest of my Husbands Letters, in which I always kept the Certificate of my Marriage, when this rude Fellow came in, and with the nauseous Familiarity of such unbred Brutes, snatched the Papers out of my Hand.  I was immediately under so great a Concern, that I threw my self at