 intentions, feels a consciousness of something wrong in its resolutions! Direct for me by the name of Benson, at Mrs. Eccles's, millener, in Charles street. Adieu. I sign the pretty name you gave me.
CLELIA.
Henrietta had just sealed her letter, when somebody tapp'd at her door; she opened it immediately, and, seeing Mrs. Eccles, asked her pardon for not waiting on her before. Mrs. Eccles told her, that her little supper being ready, she came to see if she was at leisure.
Miss Courteney found the cloth laid in the parlour, and an elegant supper was served up. Mrs. Eccles did not fail to apologize frequently for the meanness of her entertainment, and was gratified with as many assurances from her fair guest, that no apology was necessary. During the repast, Mrs. Eccles entertained her with an account of the newest fashions, the most celebrated performers of the opera and playhouses, little pieces or scandal, and the like topicks of

conversation, which Henrietta had often heard discussed among her more polite acquaintance, and indeed almost the only ones that engage the attention during the recess of the card-table.
The millener then turning the discourse to the accident that procured her so agreeable a lodger, artfully pursued her hints till the young lady found herself obliged to satisfy in some degree her curiosity concerning her situation.
Though she was naturally communicative, even to a fault; yet she did not think proper to disclose herself farther, than to tell her, that she had been obliged to come to London upon some affairs of consequence, which could not be settled till the arrival of her brother, who was every day expected from his travels.
This account was so near the truth, that miss Courteney, in the simplicity of her own heart, thought it could not fail of being believed. However, the millener, who knew the world very well, conceived there was something extraordinary in the case— nothing less than a love-intrigue: nor did this suspicion give her any uneasiness. She was one of those convenient persons with whom a lady, upon paying a certain sum of money, might lie-in privately, and be properly attended. She made no scruple of accommodating with lodgings a young wife, whose

husband, for certain family reasons, visits her only now and then; and as she generally sound her account in such sort of lodgers, she seldom desired, and indeed was seldom encumbered with any other.
The youth, beauty, and elegance of miss Courteney, the introductory letter so oddly conceived,
