It was now two days after the closet scene, that I got up about six in the morning, and leaving my bedfellow fast asleep, stole down, with no other thought than of taking a little fresh air in a small garden, which our back parlour opened into, and from which my confinement debarred me, at the times company came to my house; but now sleep and silence reigned all over it. I opened the parlour door, and well surprised was I at seeing, by the side of a fire half-out, a young gentleman in the old lady’s elbow chair, with his legs laid upon another, fast asleep, and left there by his thoughtless companions, who had drank him down, and then went off with every one but his mistress, whilst he stayed behind by the courtesy of the old matron, who would not disturb or turn him out in that condition at one in the morning; and beds, it is more than probable there were none to spare. On the table still remained the punch bowl and glasses, stewed about in their usual disorder after a drunken revel. But when I drew nearer, to view the sleeping estray, heavens! what a sight! No! term of years, no turn of fortune could ever eraze the lightninglike impression his form made on me. Yes! dearest object of my earliest passion, I command for ever the remembrance of thy first appearance to my ravished eyes, it calls thee up, present; and I see thee now. Figure to yourself, Madam, fair stripling between eighteen and nineteen, with his head reclined on one of the sides of the chair, his hair disordered curls, irregularly shading a face, on which all the roseate bloom of youth and all the manly graces conspired to fix my eye sand heart; even the languour and paleness of his face, in which the momentary triumph of the lily over the rose was owing to the excesses of the night, gave an inexpressible sweetness to the finest features imaginable: his eyes, closed in sleep, displayed the meeting edges of their lids beautifully bordered with long eye-lashes; over which no pencil could have described two more regular arches than those that graced his forehead, which was high, perfectly white and smooth; then a pair of vermilion lips, pouting and swelling to the touch, as if a bee had freshly stung them, seemed to challenge me to get the gloves off this lovely sleeper, had not the modesty and respect, which in both sexes are inseparable from a true passion, checked my impulses.