's draughts of pleasure in us.
    With this noble and agreeable youth liv'd I in perfect joy and constancy. He
was full bent on keeping me to himself, for the honey-month at least; but his
stay in London was not even so long, his father, who had a post in Ireland,
taking him abruptly with him on his repairing thither. Yet even then I was near
keeping hold of his affection and person, as he had propos'd, and I had
consented to follow him in order to go to Ireland after him, as soon as he could
be settled there; but meeting with an agreeable and advantageous match in that
kingdom, he chose the wiser part, and forebore sending for me, but at the same
time took care that I should receive a very magnificent present, which did not
however compensate for all my deep regret on my loss of him.
    This event also created a chasm in our little society, which Mrs. Cole, on
the foot of her usual caution, was in no haste to fill up; but then it redoubled
her attention to procure me, in the advantages of a traffic for a counterfeit
maidenhead, some consolation for the sort of widowhood I had been left in; and
this was a scheme she had never lost prospect of, and only waited for a proper
person to bring it to bear with.
    But I was, it seems, fated to be my own caterer in this, as I had been in my
first trial of the market.
    I had now pass'd near a month in the enjoyment of all the pleasures of
familiarity and society with my companions, whose particular favourites (the
baronet excepted, who soon after took Harriet home) had all, on the terms of
community establish'd in the house, solicited the gratification of their taste
for variety in my embraces; but I had with the utmost art and address, on
various pretexts, eluded their pursuit, without giving them cause to complain;
and this reserve I used neither out of dislike of them, or disgust of the thing,
but my true reason was my attachment to my own, and my tenderness of invading
the choice of my companions, who outwardly exempt, as they seem'd, from
jealousy, could not but in secret like me the better for the regard I had for,
without making a merit of it to them. Thus easy, and beloved by the whole
family, did I go on; when one day, that, about five in the afternoon, I stepped
over to a fruiterer's shop
