discourse, she has not yet wholly satisfied her resentment.  Console yourself for the hatred of a person, whose heart never merited your tenderness.  Return:  a longer stay in this place will but draw upon you some fresh misfortune:  for my part, I shall soon leave her:  I know her, and I thank God for it.  I do not repent having pitied her at first; but I am disgusted with an employment which but ill agrees with my way of thinking.”

Upon reading this letter, astonishment, shame, hatred, and rage, seized at once upon his heart:  then menaces, invectives, and the desire of vengeance, broke forth by turns, and excited his passion and resentment; but, after he deliberately considered the matter, he resolved that it was now the best way quietly to mount his horse, and to carry back with him to London a severe cold, instead of the soft wishes and tender desires he had brought from thence.  He quitted this perfidious place with much greater expedition than he had arrived at it, though his mind was far from being occupied with such tender and agreeable ideas:  however, when he thought himself at a sufficient distance to be out of danger of meeting Lord Chesterfield and his hounds, he chose to look back, that he might at least have the satisfaction of seeing the prison where this wicked enchantress was confined; but what was his surprise, when he saw a very fine house, situated on the banks of a river, in the most delightful and pleasant country imaginable.  Neither rock nor precipice was here to be seen; for, in reality, they were only in the letter of his perfidious mistress.  This furnished fresh cause for resentment and confusion to a man who thought himself so well acquainted with all the wiles, as well as weaknesses, of the fair sex; and who now found himself the dupe of a coquette, who was reconciled to her husband in order to be revenged on her lover.

At last he reached London, well furnished with arguments to maintain that a man must be extremely weak to trust to the tenderness of a woman who has once deceived him, but that he must be a complete fool to run after her.

This adventure not being much to his credit, he suppressed, as much as possible, both the journey and the circumstances attending it; but, as we may easily suppose, Lady Chesterfield made no secret of it, the king came to the knowledge of it; and, having complimented Hamilton upon it, desired to be informed of all the particulars of the expedition.  The Chevalier de Grammont happened to be present at this recital; and, having gently inveighed against the treacherous manner in which he had been used, said:  “If she is to be blamed for carrying the jest so far, you are no less to be blamed for coming back so suddenly, like an ignorant novice.  I dare lay an hundred guineas, she has more than once repented of a resentment which you pretty well deserved for the trick you had played her:  women love revenge; but their resentments seldom last long; and if you had remained in the neighbourhood