I have at last recover’d sense enough to tell you, I have receiv’d your letter by _Dorillus_, and which had like to have been discover’d; for he prudently enough put it under the strawberries he brought me in a basket, fearing he should get no other opportunity to have given it me; and my mother seeing them look so fair and fresh, snatch’d the basket with a greediness I have not seen in her before; whilst she was calling to her page for a porcelain dish to put them out, _Dorillus_ had an opportunity to hint to me what lay at the bottom: heavens! had you seen my disorder and confusion; what should I do? Love had not one invention in store, and here it was that all the subtlety of women abandon’d me. Oh heavens, how cold and pale I grew, lest the most important business of my life should be betray’d and ruin’d! but not to terrify you longer with fears of my danger, the dish came, and out the strawberries were pour’d, and the basket thrown aside on the bank where my mother sat, (for we were in the garden when we met accidentally _Dorillus_ first with the basket) there were some leaves of fern put at the bottom between the basket and letter, which by good fortune came not out with the strawberries, and after a minute or two I took up the basket, and walking carelessly up and down the garden, gather’d here and there a flower, pinks and jessamine, and filling my basket, sat down again ‘till my mother had eat her fill of the fruit, and gave me an opportunity to retire to my apartment, where opening the letter, and finding you so near, and waiting to see me, I had certainly sunk down on the floor, had not _Melinda_ supported me, who only was by; something so new, and ‘till now so strange, seiz’d me at the thought of so secret an interview, that I lost all my senses, and life wholly departing, I rested on _Melinda_ without breath or motion; the violent effects of love and honour, the impetuous meeting tides of the extremes of joy and fear, rushing on too suddenly, overwhelm’d my senses; and it was a pretty while before I recover’d strength to get to my cabinet, where a second time I open’d your letter, and read it again with a thousand changes of countenance, my whole mass of blood was in that moment so discompos’d, that I chang’d from an ague to a fever several times in a minute: oh what will all this bring me to? And where will the raging fit end? I die with that thought, my guilty pen slackens in my trembling hand, and I languish and fall over the un-employ’d paper;----oh help me, some divinity,----or if you did,--I fear I should be angry: oh _Philander_! a thousand passions and distracted thoughts crowd to get out, and make their soft complaints to thee; but oh they lose themselves with mixing; they are blended in a confusion together, and love nor art can divide them, to deal them out in order; sometimes I would tell you of my joy at your arrival, and my unspeaking transports at the thought of seeing you so soon,