MR. BELFORD, TO ROBERT LOVELACE, ESQ.
MONDAY NIGHT, JULY 17.
On my return to Rowland's, I found that the apothecary was just gone up.
Mrs. Rowland being above with him, I made the less scruple to go up too,
as it was probable, that to ask for leave would be to ask to be denied;
hoping also, that the letters had with me would be a good excuse.
She was sitting on the side of the broken couch, extremely weak and low;
and, I observed, cared not to speak to the man: and no wonder; for I
never saw a more shocking fellow, of a profession tolerably genteel, nor
heard a more illiterate one prate--physician in ordinary to this house,
and others like it, I suppose! He put me in mind of Otway's apothecary
in his Caius Marius; as borrowed from the immortal Shakspeare:
Meagre and very rueful were his looks:
Sharp misery had worn him to the bones.
------------ Famine in his cheeks:
Need and oppression staring in his eyes:
Contempt and beggary hanging on his back:
The world no friend of his, nor the world's law.
As I am in black, he took me, at my entrance, I believe, to be a doctor;
and slunk behind me with his hat upon his two thumbs, and looked as if he
expected the oracle to open, and give him orders.
The lady looked displeased, as well at me as at Rowland, who followed me,
and at the apothecary. It was not, she said, the least of her present
misfortunes, that she could not be left to her own sex; and to her option
to see whom she pleased.
I besought her excuse; and winking for the apothecary to withdraw, [which
he did,] told her, that I had been at her new lodgings, to order every
thing to be got ready for reception, presuming she would choose to go
thither: that I had a chair at the door: that Mr. Smith and his wife [I
named their names, that she should not have room for the least fear of
Sinclair's] had been full of apprehensions for her safety: that I had
brought two letters, which were left there fore her; the one by the post,
the other that very morning.
This took her attention. She held out her charming hand for them; took
them, and, pressing them to her lips--From the only friend I have in the
world! said she; kissing them again; and looking at the seals, as if to
see whether they had been opened. I can't read them, said she, my eyes
are too dim; and put them into her bosom.