Letters LII. and LVI. of this volume.


You may be curious to know how she passed her time, when she was obliged
to leave her lodging to avoid you.

Mrs. Smith tells me 'that she was very ill when she went out on Monday
morning, and sighed as if her heart would break as she came down stairs,
and as she went through the shop into the coach, her nurse with her, as
you had informed me before: that she ordered the coachman (whom she hired
for the day) to drive any where, so it was into the air: he accordingly
drove her to Hampstead, and thence to Highgate. There at the
Bowling-green House, she alighted, extremely ill, and having breakfasted,
ordered the coachman to drive very slowly any where. He crept along to
Muswell-hill, and put up at a public house there; where she employed
herself two hours in writing, though exceedingly weak and low, till the
dinner she had ordered was brought in: she endeavoured to eat, but could
not: her appetite was gone, quite gone, she said. And then she wrote on
for three hours more: after which, being heavy, she dozed a little in an
elbow-chair. When she awoke, she ordered the coachman to drive her very
slowly to town, to the house of a friend of Mrs. Lovick; whom, as agreed
upon, she met there: but, being extremely ill, she would venture home at
a late hour, although she heard from the widow that you had been there;
and had reason to be shocked at your behaviour. She said she found there
was no avoiding you: she was apprehensive she should not live many hours,
and it was not impossible but the shock the sight of you must give her
would determine her fate in your presence.

'She accordingly went home. She heard the relation of your astonishing
vagaries, with hands and eyes often lifted up; and with these words