I have written all night. [Excuse indifferent writing; my crow-quills
are worn to the stumps, and I must get a new supply.]
***
These ladies always write with crow-quills, Jack.
If thou art capable of taking in all my providences, in this letter, thou
wilt admire my sagacity and contrivance almost as much as I do myself.
Thou seest, that Miss Lardner, Mrs. Sinclair, Tomlinson, Mrs.
Fretchville, Mennell, are all mentioned in it. My first liberties with
her person also. [Modesty, modesty, Belford, I doubt, is more confined
to time, place, and occasion, even by the most delicate minds, than these
minds would have it believed to be.] And why all these taken notice of
by me from the genuine letter, but for fear some future letter from the
vixen should escape my hands, in which she might refer to these names?
And, if none of them were to have been found in this that is to pass for
her's, I might be routed horse and foot, as Lord M. would phrase it in a
like case.
Devilish hard (and yet I may thank myself) to be put to all this plague
and trouble:--And for what dost thou ask?--O Jack, for a triumph of more
value to me beforehand than an imperial crown!--Don't ask me the value of
it a month hence. But what indeed is an imperial crown itself when a man
is used to it?
Miss Howe might well be anxious about the letter she wrote. Her sweet
friend, from what I have let pass of her's, has reason to rejoice in the
thought that it fell not into my hands.
And now must all my contrivances be set at work, to intercept the
expected letter from Miss Howe: which is, as I suppose, to direct her to
a place of safety, and out of my knowledge. Mrs. Townsend is, no doubt,
in this case, to smuggle her off: I hope the villain, as I am so
frequently called between these two girls, will be able to manage this
point.
But what, perhaps, thou askest, if the lady should take it into her head,
by the connivance of Miss Rawlins, to quit this house privately in the
night?
I have thought of this, Jack. Does not Will. lie in the house? And is
not the widow Bevis my fast friend?