 or at least attended to, the mention
of: and he was so long-breath'd at it, that in the few moments in which I ran
out to save him, he had not yet emerged, before I fell into the swoon, in which,
as he rose, seeing me extended on the bank, his first idea was that some young
woman was upon some design of frolic or diversion with him, for he knew I could
not have fallen a-sleep there without his having seen me before: agreeably to
which notion he had ventured to approach, and finding me without sign of life,
and still perplex'd as he was what to think of the adventure, he took me in his
arms at all hazards, and carried me into the summerhouse, of which he observed
the door open: there he laid me down on the couch, and tried, as he protested in
good faith, by several means to bring me to myself again, till fired, as he
said, beyond all bearing by the sight and touch of several parts of me which
were unguardedly exposed to him, he could no longer govern his passion; and the
less, as he was not quite sure that his first idea of this swoon being a feint
was not the very truth of the case: seduced then by this flattering notion, and
overcome by the present, as he styled them, superhuman temptations, combined
with the solitude and seeming security of the attempt, he was not enough his own
master not to make it. Leaving me then just only whilst he fastened the door, he
returned with redoubled eagerness to his prey: when, finding me still entranced,
he ventured to place me as he pleased, whilst I felt, no more than the dead,
what he was about, till the pain he put me to roused me just in time enough to
be witness of a triumph I was not able to defeat, and now scarce regretted: for
as he talked, the tone of his voice sounded, methought, so sweetly in my ears,
the sensible nearness of so new and interesting an object to me wrought so
powerfully upon me, that, in the rising perception of things in a new and
pleasing light, I lost all sense of the past injury. The young gentleman soon
discern'd the symptoms of a reconciliation in my softened looks, and hastening
to receive the seal of it from my lips, press'd them tenderly to pass his pardon
in the return of a kiss so melting fiery, that the impression of it being
carried to my heart, and
