 other, as to tell them of their own.«
    »Well,« continued Mrs. Fitzpatrick, »my Husband at last returned; and if I
am thoroughly acquainted with my own Thoughts, I hated him now more than ever;
but I despised him rather less: For certainly nothing so much weakens our
Contempt, as an Injury done to our Pride or our Vanity.
    He now assumed a Carriage to me, so very different from what he had lately
worn, and so nearly resembling his Behaviour the first Week of our Marriage,
that had I now had any Spark of Love remaining, he might, possibly, have
rekindled my Fondness for him. But though Hatred may succeed to Contempt, and
may, perhaps, get the better of it, Love, I believe, cannot. The Truth is, the
Passion of Love is too restless to remain contented, without the Gratification
which it receives from its Object; and one can no more be inclined to love
without loving, than we can have Eyes without seeing. When a Husband, therefore,
ceases to be the Object of this Passion, it is most probable some other Man - I
say, my dear, if your Husband grows indifferent to you - if you once come to
despise him - I say, - that is, - if you have the Passion of Love in you - Lud!
I have bewildered myself so, - but one is apt, in these abstracted
Considerations, to lose the Concatenation of Ideas, as Mr. Locke says. - In
short, the Truth is - In short, I scarce know what it is; but, as I was saying,
my Husband returned, and his Behaviour, at first, greatly surprized me; but he
soon acquainted me with the Motive, and taught me to account for it. In a Word,
then, he had spent and lost all the ready Money of my Fortune; and as he could
mortgage his own Estate no deeper, he was now desirous to supply himself with
Cash for his Extravagance, by selling a little Estate of mine, which he could
not do without my Assistance; and to obtain this Favour, was the whole and sole
Motive of all the Fondness which he now put on.
    With this I peremptorily refused to comply. I told him, and I told him
truly, that had I been possessed of the Indies at our first Marriage, he might
have commanded it all: For it had been a constant Maxim with me, that where a
Woman disposes of her Heart, she should always deposite her Fortune; but as he
had
