Let me tell thee, before I proceed, that my wound is slight.--We were stopped by a couple of highwaymen. Thou never wert a witness of such angelic sensibility as the divine creature discovered, when she found I had received some hurt. She alarmed me beyond description, by the excess of her feelings. Oh! She has a soul alive to all the throbs of humanity! It shoots and shivers in every vein!--Then too when we arrived, when candles were brought [I had bled somewhat freely, and I suppose looked rather pale] thou hast no conception of, it is impossible to conceive the energy with which she insisted on sending for the best and most immediate help. We had another battle of sensibility; for I assure thee I was almost as much [Did I not know her I should say more.] alarmed for her as she could be for me. Yet do not imagine I am fool enough to flatter myself with any false hopes. No: it was humanity; it was too deep a sense of a slight benefit received; it was totally distinct from love.--Oh no! Love, added to such strong, such acute sensations, surely, Oliver, it would have shrieked, would have fainted, would have died!--Her fears and feelings were powerful I grant, but they were all social, and would have been equally awakened for any creature whom she had known, and had equal cause to esteem. And she esteems all who have but the smallest claims to such respect; even me!--Did I tell thee it was she who petitioned Sir Arthur to lay his commands on me to attend them to London, knowing I wished it; and that this was in return for the trifling favour I had done her, in galloping after her with her favourite bird? Oh! She is all benignity! All grace! All angel! Never did I feel such raptures as since I have received this fortunate, this happy wound!--Yet why?--Is not her heart exactly what it was? It is. I should be an idiot not to perceive it is. Strange contradiction! Hopeless yet happy!--But it is a felicity of short duration. Would it were possible for me to accompany her to France! My restless foreboding imagination has persuaded me she will be in danger the moment she is from under my protection. Vain fool! Who, what am I?--Because a couple of dastardly highwaymen have galloped away at the first report of a pistol, my inflated fancy has been busy in persuading me that I am her hero! Yet I wish I might go with her! Tell me, Oliver, wouldst not thou wish so too? Would not all the world wish the same? Didst thou ever in thy life behold her without feelings unusual, throbs, doubts, desires, and fears; wild, incoherent, yet deriving ecstasy from that divinity which irradiates her form and beams on every object around her?--Do!--Think me a poor, raving, lovesick blockhead! And yet it is true! All I have said of her, and infinitely more, is true! Thou nor the world cannot disprove it! Would I might go with her!