I snatch a few moments while my beloved is retired, [as I hope, to
rest,] to perform my promise. No pursuit--nor have I apprehensions of
any; though I must make my charmer dread that there will be one.
And now, let me tell thee, that never was joy so complete as mine!--But
let me inquire, is not the angel flown away?
*****
O no! She is in the next apartment!--Securely mine!--Mine for ever!
O ecstasy!--My heart will burst my breast,
To leap into her bosom!
I knew that the whole stupid family were in a combination to do my
business for me. I told thee that they were all working for me, like so
many ground moles; and still more blind than the moles are said to be,
unknowing that they did so. I myself, the director of their principal
motions; which falling in with the malice of their little hearts, they
took to be all their own.
But did I say my joy was perfect?--O no!--It receives some abatement
from my disgusted bride. For how can I endure to think that I owe more
to her relations' precautions than to her favour for me?--Or even, as
far as I know, to her preference of me to another man?
But let me not indulge this thought. Were I to do so, it might cost my
charmer dear. Let me rejoice, that she has passed the rubicon: that she
cannot return: that, as I have ordered it, the flight will appear to the
implacables to be altogether with her own consent: and that if I doubt
her love, I can put her to trials as mortifying to her niceness, as
glorious to my pride.--For, let me tell thee, dearly as I love her, if
I thought there was but the shadow of a doubt in her mind whether she
preferred me to any man living, I would shew her no mercy.