I am not my own mistress enough—then my mother—always up and down—and watching as if I were writing to a fellow. But I will try if I can contain myself in tolerable bounds. The women of the house where you are—O my dear, the women of the house—but you never thought highly of them—so it cannot be very ☞ surprising—nor would you have stayed so long with them, had not the notion of removing to one of your own
, made you less uneasy, and less curious about their characters, and behaviour. Yet I could now wish, that you had been less reserved among them ☞—But I tease you—In short, my dear, you are certainly in a devilish house!—Be assured that the woman is one of the vilest women—nor does she go to you by her right name—(Very true!)—Her name is not Sinclair, nor is the street she lives in Dover-street. Did you never go out by yourself, and discharge the coach or chair, and return ☞ by another coach or chair? If you did, (yet I don’t remember that you ever wrote to me, that you did), you would never have found your way to the vile house, either by the woman’s name, Sinclair, or by the street’s name, mentioned by that Doleman in his letter about the lodgings.190
The wretch might indeed have held out these false lights a little more excusably, had the house been an honest house; and had his end only been to prevent mischief from your brother. But this contrivance was antecedent, as I think, to your brother’s project; so that no excuse can be made ☞ for his intentions at the time—the man, whatever he may now intend, was certainly then, even then, a villain in his heart.
☞ I am excessively concerned that I should be prevailed upon, between your over-niceness, on one hand, and my mother’s positiveness, on the other, to be satisfied without knowing how to direct to you at your lodgings. I think too, that the proposal that I should be put off to a third-hand knowledge, or rather veiled in a firsthand ignorance, came from him, and that it was only acquiesced in by you, as it was by me,191 upon needless and weak considerations; because, truly, I might have it to say, if challenged, that I knew not where to send to you! I am ashamed of myself!—Had this been at first excusable, it could not be a good reason for going on in the folly, when you had no liking to the ☞ house, and when he began to play tricks, and delay with you.—What! I was to mistrust myself, was I? I was to allow it to be thought, that I could ☞ not keep my own secret?—But the house to be ☞ taken at this time, and at that time, led us both on ☞—like fools, like tame fools, in a string. Upon my life, my dear, this man is a vile, a contemptible villain—I must speak out!—How has he laughed in his sleeve at us both, I warrant, for I can’t tell how long!
And yet who could have thought that a man of ☞ fortune, and some reputation, (this Doleman, I mean—not your wretch, to be sure!) formerly a rake, indeed, (I inquired after him long ago; and so was the easier satisfied); but married to a woman of family—having had a palsy-blow—and, ☞ one would think, a penitent, should recommend such a house (why, my dear, he could not inquire of it, but must find it to be bad) to such a man as Lovelace, to bring his future, nay, his then supposed, bride to?
☞ I write, perhaps, with too much violence, to be clear, but I cannot help it. Yet I lay down my pen, and take it up every ten minutes, in order to write with some temper—my mother too, in and out—What need I, (she asks me), lock myself in, if I am only reading past correspondencies? For ☞ that is my pretence, when she comes poking in with her face sharpened to an edge, as I may say, by a curiosity that gives her more pain than pleasure.—☞ The Lord forgive me; but I believe I shall huff her next time she comes in.
Do you forgive me too, my dear—my mother ought; because she says, I am my father’s girl; and because I am sure I am hers. I don’t know what to do—I don’t know what to write next—I have so much to write, yet have so little patience, and so little opportunity. But I will tell you how I came by my ☞ intelligence. That being a fact, and requiring the less attention, I will try to account to you for that.
Thus, then, it came about: “Miss Lardner (whom you have seen at her cousin Biddulph’s) saw you at St. James’s Church on Sunday was fortnight. She kept you in her eye during the whole time; but could not once obtain the notice of yours, though she courtesied to you twice. She thought to pay her compliments to
