Making a Visit the other Day to my Friend Gellius, who happened to be abroad, I found the Partner of his Bosom Clarissa, and her eternal Companion Drusilla, all in Tears.  I was not received with that open Familiarity, which was used to be shewn me; and I observed something in them of that kind of Reserve, which is common with People who are under some great Affliction.  I at first apprehended, that some fatal Accident had happen’d to the Person or Circumstances of my Friend; but, upon Inquiry, I was set easy as to these Fears, tho’ they would give me no Hint, by which I might guess at the Cause of their Disquietude.  Finding them in a Disposition so unapt for Mirth, I took my Leave; judging, it could be no worse than some little domestick Misunderstanding, occasion’d, perhaps, by a disagreeable Command on the Side of the Husband, or some Contradiction on the Side of the Wife.  But my Man, who is very intimate with all the Servants, has since let me into the Secret.  It seems, there is a strange Union of Souls between these two Ladies; from what Affinity of Disposition, or mysterious Impulse, is a Secret only known to Nature and themselves.  They love and hate alike; their Sympathies and Antipathies are the same; and all Joys are tasteless to the One, without the Company and Participation of the Other.  Their Affection is of that tender, that delicate Nature, that the smallest Jealousie, the least Unkindness blasts it.  It happen’d one Day, that Clarissa was more than commonly civil to her Husband:  There was something past between them, that look’d like Fondness, and this in the Presence of Drusilla:  Who can express the Passions that struggled in the Female Rival’s Soul?  Despair, Rage, Jealousie, and Anguish at once possess’d her; and it was now Time to retire to Sleep; the Lady with her Husband withdrew to Bed, and the jealous Friend likewise committed her self to her Pillow, tho’ not to Rest.  Her Soul was busied with the bitter Reflexion of what had past, and what further Endearments might be practis’d.  Unable to compose her self, she resolves to rise, and pretends Sickness:  Clarissa is disturbed from the Embraces of her Husband; nor is suffer’d to go back to the Bed of Wedlock, till she has promis’d her disgusted Friend, by a forc’d Indifference to restrain the Liberties of the inamour’d Gellius.

The learned Times, I find, were not unacquainted with these Female Intimacies:  And by the Names they affix’d to the Persons practising them, which I shall forbear to mention, ’tis plain they put none of the best Constructions on their Familiarities.