Not one syllable has Griffiths breathed on the adventure. We dress and undress as mute as mourners at a funeral. The brother is too much humbled by the affair of the lanthern, to appear before me at present. Eat he must, be my disappointment what it may. Do take him into your household, Walter. Then, if I catch a glimpse of future operations and find his aid needful, he would doubtless double his diligence, and call up his valour to retrieve a lost reputation. Order Steele to go on again with the writings. I will be in town to sign by the twenty-eighth. Heigh ho!--One last sigh to the memory of my departing estate.--I-- Why, Walter, these fashionable damsels beat us hollow in the ease and gaiety of impudence. Miss Monckton (who arrived here the day following my disaster,) just now entered the library; and, coming up to the writing table, familiarly peered over my shoulder. 'A _lost reputation_!--Oh you wretch,' cried she, snatching the paper from under my hand, 'it is the volume of your sins!--Nay:--I protest, I'll read it.' And she actually crammed it into her pocket. 'Madam,' said I passionately, 'I insist on your giving me the letter.' 'And I insist on keeping it.' Is not a lady's _insist_ equal to that of a lord?' 'Madam--' 'Sir--Come hither.' she pulled me toward the glass. 'Look at yourself.--Guilty or not guilty?--Ah, Filmar, Filmar, from whom did you take your lesson of blushing?--But let me go, let me go.--I die to read the story, that I may know whether you have yet any chance for heaven!' I don't perceive, Walter, why sex should be a security against horse-whipping. Such a revenge I could have bestowed with a warm good-will on Miss Monckton.--I took the next best, in my power; and had just forced the paper from her, when in walked my father, and the lady withdrew. Would you believe it? The earl solemnly asked how I dared treat with such impertinence a woman of Miss Monckton's rank?--Did I think I was romping with some chambermaid? 'Be assured, my lord', answered I 'if I made a respectful distinction in this case, it is on the side of the chambermaid.' My father looked his reply, (as well as he could Walter) and walked away. Miss Monckton is a coquette, with all the finish of high breeding. She is elegant, though diminutive; highly accomplished in exterior: the rest a blank.--Yet her ease, grace, and vivacity, would have claimed more moments of admiration from me, were not my thoughts perpetually gadding after this Sibella Valmont: sometimes arraigning, sometimes acquitting, her. But my heart has no interest in the motive, Boyer.--No; she is quite an original, formed rather to constitute the business of a life, than the casual pleasure of a moment. I should hate uniformity even of happiness. Give me the zest of an occasional hour of rapture, snatched from a vortex of novelty, whim, and folly.