 your Sex, how jealous we are of you! We went Yesterday to your Trial, with the most substantial of our Friends, in order to give you a Character, if required; but, you neither called upon us, nor would look on the Side where we stood. Ah, my dear Girls, my sweet Friends! cried
Arabella,
how could I hope or imagine, that you would acknowledge or even think of so low and lost a Wretch as I was.
Arabella
was now at Liberty to revisit her old Acquaintance. She was caressed more than ever; and took in so much Work that she was obliged to hire a Girl to attend the Child.
I was now at the very Pinnacle of human Happiness. I had twenty Guineas left of the fifty I got from my Father. My Wife earned from two to her three Shillings
per
Day. And Mr.
Longfield,
who generally dieted with us, frequently brought Tea and Sugar, or a Bottle of Cordial, or some such Matter in his Pocket, which he pretended to have gotten excessively cheap, or as a Present.
Thus we lived, in a Kind of frugal Affluence. Affliction was no more. The Remembrance of Distress and Poverty had vanished, as a Dream. Our Days moved upon Down; and Joy and Peace, nightly prepared our Pillows.
Happy Days, happy Hours, above the Lot of Mortality! Heaven preserve me from ever tasting the like again; lest they also should be attended by so terrible a Reverse.
Mr.
Longfield
was very lovely in his Person and Manners. He had made the Belles Letters his peculiar Study; and he used to procure a Variety, of entertaining Novels and Memoirs, in
French,
which he read fluently into
English,
while my Wife was at Work. We had contracted a Friendship which I imagined too strict for Time or Chance to untie; and I loved him the better for his Attention to my
Arabella,
whose Entertaiment seemed to form the chief Delight of his Life.
I gave him my Story, in Parts, from Time to Time; and he had plentifully watered the several Passages with his Tears. His own Experience had taught him to join, with Mr.
Goodville,
in thinking that the Education, of a mere Scholar, was no way suited to the common Occasions of Life. He, therefore, introduced me to Mr.
Marfelt,
his late Master, to whom he had recommended me as private Tutor to his Son; and we agreed at ��50
per Ann.
to commence as soon as the young Gentleman should descend from the Nursery.
Mr.
Longfield
