One thought has struck me.--She has the utmost confidence in what she calls the force of truth. It cannot fail! That is her constant language. I am to be her first convert. I have humoured this whim lately; except when my irritable fancy breaks loose, and runs riot. If she have any folly, it is this said confidence: and whether it be one, or be not, is more than I have yet been able to determine. But she has furnished me with an argument, which I might carry to I know not what extent. 'You,' I urge to her, 'you need not act with the timid and suspicious caution of your sex. You are sure of your principle; and to proceed with distrust and fear would prove doubt instead of certainty.' She boldly replies,--Yes, she is sure; and therefore she speaks and behaves with all that undisguise and sincerity which are so uncommon in the world, and which some would deem so blameable. She says true: she rises totally superior to the petty arts and tricks of her sex. I seem to participate the trust which she reposes in herself; and the confidence which she appears to place in me, when she so openly declares all she thinks and all she means, is highly pleasing. But, if my views were different from what they are, I doubt whether madam Confidence might not be brought to lull madam Caution so fast asleep, at some lucky moment or another, as to suffer me to purloin her key, and afterward to rob her of all her treasure. Nor should I fail, under certain circumstances, to try the experiment. Neither is that intriguing spirit which has so long been in restless habits of continual pursuit entirely idle. My first care as usual was to secure the prime-minister of my charmer, whose name is Laura. The hussey is handsome, cunning, and not without ambition. An occasional guinea and a few warm kisses, when it was certain that all was safe, for caution is necessary, have bound her to me. The poor fool is fond of me, and often finds some ingenious chambermaid's excuse to pay me a visit. It does not appear that I shall need her agency; otherwise here she is, properly prepared to be wholly at my devotion. Anna St. Ives affords the fancy full employment; with any other woman an amour without plot and stratagem, attack and defence, would be too insipid to be endured. Not but I sometimes find my conscience reproach me, for suffering such active talents as mine to lie concealed and unknown; being as they are capable of acquiring renown so high. When in Italy, having even there, in that land of artifice, rendered myself the superior of all competitors, I used to glory in the havoc I should make on my return to England. But this the will of fate opposes, at least for the present: and of what duration my honeymoon is to be is more than any prescience of mine can discover.