 the Remainder of our Bread in Store, we discharged our Reckoning, and set out on our last Stage.
The Prospect of speedy Relief, and the Possibility that it might not arrive too late, gave us Spirits beyond our Powers, and we pushed on till we came nearly opposite to this House, though we did not then know to whom it belonged. Here, slackening our Pace, we found ourselves growing extremely sick; whether it was, that we were overpowered, by the late Nourishment we had taken, or by a Toil and Fatigue that surpassed our Abilities.
Hammy,
said my
Arabella,
God be praised! it is done, it is finished. I die, my
Hammy,
but I would not die within the Gaze of public Passengers. Help me into the Field, if you are able, my Love. I have no further Use for Charity, now, save that of laying my Limbs, with Decency, in the Ground.
She spoke, nor had I the Power to answer. But, overcome as I was by Sickness and Anguish, I exerted myself to help her through the Turnstile; and sitting down on the Sod, I laid her Head in my Lap, where she fainted away. And there we remained in the Situation, in which your Charity found us.
Your Story of
Clement,
my Friend, is truely interesting, and in some Passages may be edifying also. I have only to observe that it is too long for an Episode, and that the Character of your Heroine Milliner is constrained and unnatural; it is elevated above the Fortitude and Virtues of Man himself, but quite out of the Sight and Soaring of any of her weak and silly Sex. Had she been a Princess, and Empress, she could not have figured, in your History, with greater Dignity.
There lay my Error, Sir, unhappily, I did not reflect that Royalty or Station were necessary to Christian Resignation and Lowliness of Temper.
Your Drollery is more provoking than argumentative, I must tell you, Sir. I was not speaking of the Lowliness, but of the Fortitude of your
Arabella;
indeed it exceeds every Thing that I have met in Romance. Such an Exaltation of female Character is of evil Influence among the Sex; each Woman will be apt to arrogate some of the Merit to herself; their Vanity will be inflated, and they will rise, on the Stilts of
Arabella,
to a presumptuous Level with their natural Lords and Masters. Women, unquestionably, have their becoming Qualities; in the Bedchamber, Kitchen, and Nursery, they are useful to Man
