Page:Memoirs of a Woman of Pleasure (1749, vol. 2).pdf/33

This page has been proofread, but needs to be validated.
Woman of Pleasure.
29

ing in the water, I got up to see what was the matter; and what indeed should it be but the son of a neighbouring gentleman, as I afterwards found, (for I had never seen him, before,) who had stray'd that way with his gun, and heated by his sport, and the sultriness of the day, had been tempted by the freshness of the clear stream; so that presently stripping, he jump'd into it on the other side which border'd on a wood, some trees whereof, inclin'd down to the water, form'd a pleasing, shady recess, commodious to undress, and leave his cloaths under.

My first emotions, at the sight of this youth naked in the water, were, with all imaginable respect to truth, those of surprize and fear; and in course I should immediately have run out, had not my modesty, fatally for itself, interposed the objection of the door and window being so situated, that it was scarce possible to get out, and make my way along the bank to the house, without his seeing me: which I could not bear the thought of,

B 3
so