To the loud, anxious inquiries, and oppressive kindness of her homely relatives, she made no reply; but, stretching out her hands to her husband sobbed,

“Take, oh, take me from this place!”

Mortified, ashamed, and provoked, at a behavior so childish and absurd, Douglas could only stammer out something about Lady Juliana having been frightened and fatigued; and, requesting to be shown to their apartment, he supported her almost lifeless to it, while his aunts followed, all three prescribing different remedies in a breath.

“For heaven’s sake, take them from me!” faintly articulated Lady Juliana, as she shrank from the many hands that were alternately applied to her pulse and forehead.

After repeated entreaties and plausible excuses from Douglas, his aunts at length consented to withdraw, and he then exerted all the rhetoric he was master of to reconcile his bride to the situation love and necessity had thrown her into.  But in vain he employed reasoning, caresses, and threats; the only answers he could extort were tears and entreaties to be taken from a place where she declared she felt it impossible to exist.

“If you wish my death, Harry,” said she, in a voice almost inarticulate from excess of weeping, “oh! kill me quickly, and do not leave me to linger out my days, and perish at last with misery here.”

“For heaven’s sake, tell me what you would have me do,” said her husband, softened to pity by her extreme distress, “and I swear that in everything possible I will comply with your wishes.”

“Oh, fly then, stop the horses, and let us return immediately.  Do run, dearest Harry, or they will be gone; and we shall never get away from this odious place.”

“Where would you go?” asked he, with affected calmness.

“Oh, anywhere; no matter where, so as we do but get away from hence:  we can be at no loss.”

“None in the world,” interrupted Douglas, with a bitter smile, “as long as there is a prison to receive us.  See,” continued he, throwing a few shillings down on the table, “there is every sixpence I possess in the world, so help me heaven!”

Lady Juliana stood aghast.

At that instant the English Abigail burst into the room, and in a voice choking with passion, she requested her discharge, that she might return with the driver who had brought them there.

“A pretty way of travelling, to be sure, it will be,” continued she, “to go bumping behind a dirty chaise-driver; but better to be shook to a jelly altogether than stay amongst such a set of Oaten-toads." [1]

[1] Hottentots.

“What do you mean?” inquired Douglas, as soon as the voluble Abigail allowed him an opportunity of asking.

“Why, my meaning, sir, is to leave this here place immediately; not that I have any objections either to my Lady or you, sir; but, to be sure, it was a sad day for me that I engaged myself to her Ladyship.  Little did I think that a lady of distinction would coming to such a poor pitiful place as this.  I am sure I thought I should ha’ swooned when I was showed the hole where I was to sleep.”