After that, it seemed as if no cloud could ever come to obscure the Heavens of your happiness. Nevertheless, it was very soon after that Episode that I chanced upon You one evening, sitting in the parlour with the Book of a Play before You, yet apparently not intent upon reading. When I spoke your name You started as if out of a Dream and quickly You put your handkerchief up to your eyes. I made no remark then; it would have been insolence on my part to intrude upon your private Affairs. But I felt like some faithful cur on the watch. For awhile dust was thrown in my eyes from the fact that Mr. Betterton announced to us his projected trip abroad, at the instance of Sir William Davenant, who desired him to study the Scenery and Decorations which it seems were noted Adjuncts to the Stage over in Paris. If Mr. Betterton approved of what he saw there, he was to bring back with him a scheme for such Scenery to be introduced at the new Theatre in Lincoln’s Inn Fields, which would be a great triumph over Mr. Killigrew’s Management, where no such innovations had ever been thought of. Naturally, Mr. Betterton, being a Man and an Artist, was eager and excited over this journey, which showed what great confidence Sir William Davenant reposed in his Judgment. This, methought, accounted for the fact that You, Mistress, seemed so much more dejected at the prospect of his Absence than he was. I also was satisfied that this Absence accounted for your tears. Fool that I was! I should have guessed! Mr. Betterton was absent two months, during which time I oft chanced upon You, dear Mistress, with a book lying unheeded on your lap and your dark eyes glistening with unnatural brilliancy. But I still believed that it was only Mr. Betterton’s Absence that caused this sadness which had of late fallen over your Spirits. I know that he did not write often, and I saw—oh! quite involuntarily—that when his Letters came they were unaccountably short. Then, one day—it was in May—seeing You more than usually depressed, I suggested that as the weather was so fine we should repair to the Theatre in Clare Market, and there see Mr. Killigrew’s company enact "The Beggar’s Bush," a play in which Major Mohun was acting the part of _Bellamente_ with considerable success. Had I but known what we were destined to see in that Theatre, I swear to God that I would sooner have hacked off my right leg than to have taken You thither. Yet We both started on our way, oblivious of what lay before Us. Time had long since gone by when such expeditions had to be done in secret. You, Mistress, were independent of Mistress Euphrosine’s threats and tantrums, and I had come to realise that my Employer could nowhere else in the whole City find a Clerk who would do so much for such very scanty pay, and that he would never dismiss me, for fear that he would never again meet with such a willing Drudge.