 the motives which might bury her for a time in oblivion, I insisted on his supporting her claim in preference to mine, if ever she should appear; and he perhaps the more readily acquiesced in this request, from a conviction she no

longer existed, as all my opinions on that head appeared to him entirely visionary.
Refusing to confide in this dear rash lover the means by which I meant to rejoin him, I obliged him to assume an air of grief and despair, Which persuaded the Arlington family I had relapsed into insanity. In the interim a maid of mine had been seized with an epidemic fever of the most dangerous kind; I impatiently hastened the departure of Essex, lest the cruel malady should infect him, and conjured him to wait with Lady Southampton at the Port, from whence the troops had already embarked, till I should rejoin him. The air of satisfaction he perceived in me, made him comply against his better judgment, and the Arlington race no less overjoyed at his departure than my supposed relapse, and fearful of the epidemic fever, shut up those who immediately attended on me, in the quarter of the Abbey I inhabited, avoiding it themselves as though the plague were enclosed there.

In this solitude I executed a surprizing project I had long meditated: from the moment I was informed of the mock interment of Lord Leicester, my mind had dwelt on the idea; I saw it was only to methodize the most wild and romantic plan, and however unfeasible it at first appeared, time might form and bring it to effect.—The treasure of the surveyor now became a treasure indeed; reflection convinced me the bequest originated in that wretch's having been the confidante as well as witness of his Lord's ungenerous will, and by thus disposing of it, he enabled me to escape from the despicable bondage it entailed upon me, without betraying his trust.—The maid, who alone witnessed the mysterious legacy, had, by her inviolable silence on so singular an event, sufficiently proved that she could merit my whole confidence; fortunately, she was no less favored by those in whose power I was left, and became of course the properest, and only assistant I could fix on:—by thus turning the artifice of the Queen upon herself, I might at once escape from

her power, and that of the guardians under whose care she had placed me; and gratify the first wish of Essex without endangering his safety.
Alithea embraced the plan with joy, and engaged her parents, who were laborers in the neighbourhood, to aid the delusion.—I affected to be seized
