,
as I told you, was very lovely in his Person; and he daily became more amiable and engaging in my Eyes. I was pleased that he appeared, in the same Light, to my Wife. She was indebted to him for her Life, and, in her, I held myself indebted to him, for all Things. I thought that we could never love him enough; and I, daily and nightly, importuned my
Arabella,
to affect him with a Tenderness equal to my own.
At length I became uneasy, I knew not why, nor wherefore. I grew diffident at the Comparison which I made in my Mind between
Longfield
and myself, and I was disgusted, as it were, with my own Demerits, wherefore, I grew dejected and dispirited, and yet affected to appear the reverse of what I was. I however sighed in secret. When I could form a Pretence for retiring or going abroad, I took a solitary Walk or withdrew to some Recess, where I lightened my Oppression by a loose to my Tears; and I was thereby the better enabled to seem cheerful, on my Return, and to assume a Face of Gaiety that was foreign to my Heart. Ah! are not the real Evils of Life sufficient? Yet Man adds to the Heap by his tendency to realize what is merely imaginary.
The Source of my Malady was now no longer a Secret to me. My
Longfield,
I cried to myself, my
Arabella,
my Angel, you are still faithful my
Longfield,
you are still chaste my
Arabella;
and there is nothing, wherewith I can reproach the one, or the other. But you are, both of ye, too amiable; you are fitted for each-other. Your
Clement
loves ye too well to be a Bar to your Happiness. You Two are the whole Treasure and Delight of his Existence. He will have no Bliss but your's; your Happiness shall be his; and he will die to accomplish it; since his Life is an Interruption.
I was pleased that I daily declined; but the Affectation of Cheerfulness became irksome and painful to me. One Night, as we sat together, my Wife looked at me, with an affectionate Disturbance; what is the Matter,
Hammy,
she cried. What is come over my Love? You look not, you speak not, like the once fond, the delighting and delighted Consort of your
Arabella.
Ah, I cried, it is enough. I die, and I die contented, since I leave the only two happy, for whom I
