Page:Memoirs of a Woman of Pleasure (1749, vol. 1).pdf/106

This page has been proofread, but needs to be validated.
102
Memoirs of a

An old jolly stager, who kept it, and understood life perfectly well, breakfasted with us, and leering archly at me, gave us both joy, and said, we were well paired, e'faith! that a great many gentlemen and ladies used his house, but he had never seen a handsomer couple;———He was sure I was a fresh piece———I look'd so country, so innocent! well my spouse was a lucky man!———all which common landlord's cant, not only pleas'd and sooth'd me, but help'd to divert my confusion at being with my new sovereign, whom, now the minute approach'd, I began to fear to be alone with, a timidity which true love had a greater share in, than even maiden bashfulness.

I wish'd, I doated, I could have died for him, and yet I know not how, or why, I dreaded the point which had been the object of my fiercest wishes; my pulses beat fears, amidst a flush of the warmest desires: this struggle of the passions, however, this conflict betwixt modesty and

love-