As Natura was not yet forty, in perfect health, and consequently not past the prime of manhood, this reflection cast upon his years, could not but add to his disgust of her that made it, and he replied with a spite which was very visible in his countenance, that whatever disparity there was between their ages, it would soon diminish by the course of life she followed, and which, if she persisted in, would, in a very little time, make her become an object below the voice of censure.

They must know little of the sex, that do not know no affront can be so stinging as one offered to their beauty, even tho’ conscious of having no great share of it; but the wife of Natura had heard too many flatteries, not to inspire her with the highest idea of her charms, which the little respect he now testified to have for them, did not at all abate, and only served to make her despise his stupidity, as she termed it.

No measures after this were kept between them; she seemed to take a pleasure in every thing that gave him pain; she coquetted before his face with every handsome man that came in her way, and in fine gave herself such airs as the most patient husband could not have permitted her long to persist in.  Making use of the authority the laws had given him, he, in a manner, forced her into the country, upwards of an hundred miles from London, though it was then in the depth of winter, and placed persons about her, with orders to prevent her from all means of returning, till he should judge it proper for her so to do.

On this she wrote to her uncle, complaining of the hard treatment she received, and beseeching him to take some measures to oblige her husband to restore her liberty.  The minister, who had at that time much greater concerns upon his hands on his own account, did not care to give himself any trouble about private family affairs; he only just mentioned to Natura the letter she had sent to him, and the purport of it; and on his relating to him the reasons that had compelled him to put this restraint on her behaviour, told him, he should not interfere between them; so that Natura found he had nothing to apprehend for what he had done.

Finding this step had produced nothing for her purpose, she at last condescended to submit to her justly offended husband; and on her solemn and repeated promises of regulating her conduct for the future in such a manner as he should approve, he was prevailed upon by her seeming contrition, to consent to make trial how far her heart corresponded with her professions:—­it was agreed, to prevent the town from inspecting too deeply on what had passed, that she should pretend her absence from town had been the effect of her own choice, and for giving the better colour, he went down himself, and brought her up.—­They lived together, after this, much better than they had done for some months before their quarrel, and were now, in appearance, perfectly reconciled; I say, in appearance, for all was outward shew, neither of them had in their hearts the least true affection, nor could forgive the other for what had passed between them.