The worthy agents failed to do their hirer’s bidding. He even called at Waddon, under the name of Major-General Villars, and was allowed to see the gardens. He mistook a lady at a window of the house for _the_ lady of whom he was in search, and as she smiled when he put his hand to the left side of his laced waistcoat, and made a bow till his vertebra was horizontal, he concluded that his fortune was made; and the next day he sent letters in his own name, which the servants, knowing the writer, and having their orders, dropped into the fire,—after reading them in the servants’ hall. The next move was an application to see the grounds at Waddon, professedly from the famous or infamous Duchess of Cleveland, Fielding’s chief patroness,—so low had fallen the mother of dukes and the concubine of a king. Permission was granted, but nothing came of the concession. In the meantime Mrs. Villars, by no means disposed to lose the promised recompense, persuaded Fielding that the widow had yielded, and would pay him a visit. He was in a state of delight at the intelligence. The lady, however, who was to pass as Mrs. Deleau, was a “Mistress Mary Wadsworth,” who was ready for any joke, and thought the one proposed the best she had ever shared in,—and she had been an actress in many. These two sensitive creatures accordingly repaired to Fielding’s lodgings one soft autumnal eve. The beau was in a flutter of ecstasy, was continually on his knees, and devoted himself to the lowest position in hades if he ever had loved any woman before. The assumed Mrs. Deleau was coy, as became a widow with sixty thousand pounds and no encumbrances. The lover pressed her to be married that night, if she would not have him perish; but she playfully touched his cheek with her fan, and bade him wait and hope,—sad, naughty fellow that he was! After two more such visits, the soft and tender creature was seduced to sacrifice her scruples, and consented to a private marriage at her lover’s chambers. The party supped joyously together, and then the bridegroom sallied forth in search of a priest. He found one at the Emperor of Germany’s ambassador’s; and his reverence having been introduced to the lady, satisfied her of the reality of his vocation, and in a twinkling buckled beau and belle together in a way, he said, that defied undoing. All the after-ceremonies religiously observed in those refined days ensued; indeed the marriage would not have been half a marriage without them, and so all parties but the dupers were satisfied,—and in fact even _they_ did not complain. The bride left for home next morning unattended; for family reasons, she averred, it was necessary to keep the union unrevealed, and accordingly she only repaired now and then to see “the Count,” as her husband styled himself, and to eat toasted cheese and drink port and vat-ale with a man who had married her, as he exclaimed at the sacred ceremony, “with all his heart, soul, blood, and everything else!”