Yet, much as I flatter myself with your retaining all your former
feelings towards me, I must expect a serious alteration in those of
my friend Cherry. Will she again make me her playmate? Again climb
my shoulders, and gallop me round the lawn? Are we to renew all our
little quarrels, then kiss and be friends? Shall we even recognize
each other's features, through their change from childhood to
maturity? There is, at least, one feature of our early days, that,
I trust, has undergone no alteration--our mutual affection and
friendship.
I fear I cannot manage matters so as to be with you before ten
to-morrow night: remember I bespeak my old room.
Ever affectionately your's,
ROBERT STUART.
To Gregory Wilkinson, Esq.
'There,' cries the farmer, 'if I have deprived you of an old woman,
I have got you a young man. Large estates, you know;--handsome,
fashionable;--come, pluck up a heart, my girl; ay, egad, and steal
one too.'
I rose, gave him one of my ineffable looks, and retired to my
chamber.
'So,' said I, locking my door, and flinging myself on the bed,
'this is something like misery. Here is a precious project against
my peace. I am to be forced into marriage, am I? And with whom? A
man whose legitimacy is unimpeached, and whose friends would
certainly consent. His name Robert too:--master Bobby, as the
servants used to call him. A fellow that mewed like a cat, when he
was whipt. O my Bob! what a pretty monosyllable for a girl like me
to pronounce. Now, indeed, my wretchedness is complete; the cup is
full, even to overflowing. An orphan, or at least an outcast;
immured in the prison of a proud oppressor--threatened with a
husband of decent birth, parentage and education--my governess
gone, my novels burnt, what is left to me but flight? Yes, I will
roam through the wide world in search of my parents; I will ransack
all the sliding pannels and tapestries in Italy; I will explore Il
Castello Di Udolpho, and will then enter the convent of Ursulines,
or Carmelites, or Santa della Pieta, or the Abbey of La Trappe.
Here I meet with nothing better than smiling faces and honest
hearts; or at best, with but sneaking villains. No precious
scoundrels are here, no horrors, or atrocities, worth mentioning.
But abroad I shall encounter banditti, monks, daggers, racks--O ye
celebrated terrors, when shall I taste of you?'
I then lay planning an elopement, till I was called to dinner.
Adieu.
LETTER IV
O my friend, such a discovery!--a parchment and a picture. But you
shall hear.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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