it aside, being resolved to enjoy to the full this the first night of my return to my ancient home. Now after supper we returned again to the parlour, and talked there until it was late, and the more my eye rested upon Dorothy, and the more I heard her speak, the more she seemed to me to be the same as ever, and never to have lost her former place in my heart. But when I would have showed somewhat of this in my discourse, calling her “Little cousin,” and “Sweet Doll,” I was grieved to perceive that she turned from me again, as showing that she had no liking for such familiar fashions of address. But this, says I to myself, was doubtless but the effect of our long absence and estrangement one from the other, and after that I had bid her good night, I did thank God for the prospect of happiness opening before me, not knowing that I was about to pass through some of the sorest trouble of my life. But nevertheless, this I did perceive, that whereas it had seemed to me when in East India, and even on the voyage and since I was arrived in England, easy enough to offer to Dorothy myself and my lands, though without my love, yet now this should seem to me, as to her, an outrage, and I determined with myself to wait and say naught until she should know me better. CHAPTER XVII. OF MY SETTING TO REAP THE HARVEST I HAD SOWN. Now in pursuance of this resolve of mine, I did determine to watch and study Dorothy, and so to perceive how I might best recommend myself to her favour. And with this view I did take care to spend great part of my time in company with her and Mrs Skipwith, hearing from them of all the changes that had took place since my departure, and telling them such things as they desired to know touching East India and my travels there. But since I had begun this procedure as a matter of calculation and prudence, I was surprised, when no long time had passed, to find myself hanging upon my cousin’s least word, and seizing every occasion of offering myself as her _cavaliero_. And perceiving this, I was startled. “Can this,” says I to myself, “be all repentance towards Dorothy for my former hard usage of her? and if it ben’t that, what is’t? Come now,” says I, “let me examine and see how I should regard her were I but to fall in with her in company as a stranger, and what resentiments I should entertain towards her.”