Had I considered this escapade of Mr. H.... in no more than that light and contented myself with turning away the wench, I had thought and acted right; but, flushed as I was with imaginary wrongs, I should have held Mr. H... to have been cheaply off, if I had not pushed my revenge farther, and repaid him, as exactly as could for the soul of me, in the same coin. Nor was this worthy act of justice long delayed: I had it too much at heart. Mr. H... had, about a fortnight before, taken into his service a tenant’s son, just come out the country, a very handsome young lad, scarce turned of nineteen, fresh as a rose, well sharped and clear limbed: in short, a very good excuse for any woman’s liking, even though revenge had been out of the question; any woman, I say, who was disprejudiced, and that wit and spirit enough to prefer a point of pleasure to a point of pride. Mr. H... had clapped a livery upon him; and his chief employ was, after being shewn my lodgings, to bring and carry letters or messages between his master and me; and as the situation of all kept ladies is not the fittest to inspire respect, even to the meanest of mankind, and, perhaps, less of it from the most ignorant, I could not help observing that this lad, who was, I suppose, acquainted with my relation to his master by his fellow servants, used to eye me in that bashful confused way, more expressive, more moving and readier caught at by our sex, than any other declarations whatever: my figure had, it seems, struck him, and modest and innocent as he was, he did not himself know that the pleasure he took in looking at me was love, or desire; but his eyes, naturally wanton, and now inflamed with passion, spoke a great deal more than he durst have imagined they did. Hitherto, indeed, I had only taken notice of the comeliness of the youth, but without the least design: my pride alone would have guarded me from a thought that way, had not Mr. H....’s condescension with my maid, where there was not half the temptation, in point of person, set me a dangerous example; but now I began to look on this stripling as every way a delicious instrument of my designed retaliation upon Mr. H.... of an obligation for which I should have made a conscience to die in his debt.