, you may please to know that what with a competent
number of repetitions, all in the same strain (and, by-the-bye, we have a
certain natural sense that those repetitions are very much to the taste), what
with a circle of pleasures delicately varied, there was not a moment lost to joy
all the time we staid there, till late in the night we were re-escorted home by
our 'squires, who delivered us safe to Mrs. Cole, with generous thanks for our
company.
    This too was Emily's last adventure in our way: for scarce a week after, she
was, by an accident too trivial to detail to you the particulars, found out by
her parents, who were in good circumstances, and who had been punish'd for their
partiality to their son, in the loss of him, occasion'd by a circumstance of
their over-indulgence to his appetite; upon which the so long engross'd stream
of fondness, running violently in favour of this lost and inhumanly abandon'd
child whom if they had not neglected enquiry about, they might long before have
recovered. They were now so overjoyed at the retrieval of her, that, I presume,
it made them much less strict in examining the bottom of things: for they seem'd
very glad to take for granted, in the lump, everything that the grave and decent
Mrs. Cole was pleased to pass upon them; and soon afterwards sent her, from the
country, a handsome acknowledgement.
    But it was not so easy to replace to our community the loss of so sweet a
member of it: for, not to mention her beauty, she was one of those mild, pliant
characters that if one does not entirely esteem, one can scarce help loving,
which is not such a bad compensation neither. Owing all her weakness to
good-nature, and an indolent facility that kept her too much at the mercy of
first impressions, she had just sense enough to know that she wanted
leading-strings, and thought herself so much obliged to any who would take the
pains to think for her, and guide her, that with a very little management, she
was capable of being made a most agreeable, nay, a most virtuous wife: for vice,
it is probable, had never been her choice, or her fate, if it had not been for
occasion, or example, or had she not depended less upon herself than upon her
circumstances. This presumption her conduct afterwards verified: for presently
meeting with a match that was
