custom has awarded it, nor the other overstep that delicacy which is so
severely imposed. I am not conscious that either party can assume to
have been the agent or the patient, the toil-spreader or the prey, in
the affair. When, in the course of things, the disclosure came, there
was nothing, in a manner, for either party to disclose to the other.

In July 1796 I made an excursion into the county of Norfolk, which
occupied nearly the whole of that month. During this period Mary
removed, from Cumming-street, Pentonville, to Judd place West, which may
be considered as the extremity of Somers Town. In the former situation,
she had occupied a furnished lodging. She had meditated a tour to Italy
or Switzerland, and knew not how soon she should set out with that view.
Now however she felt herself reconciled to a longer abode in England,
probably without exactly knowing why this change had taken place in her
mind. She had a quantity of furniture locked up at a broker's ever since
her residence in Store-street, and she now found it adviseable to bring
it into use. This circumstance occasioned her present removal.

The temporary separation attendant on my little journey, had its effect
on the mind of both parties. It gave a space for the maturing of
inclination. I believe that, during this interval, each furnished to the
other the principal topic of solitary and daily contemplation. Absence
bestows a refined and aërial delicacy upon affection, which it with
difficulty acquires in any other way. It seems to resemble the
communication of spirits, without the medium, or the impediment, of
this earthly frame.

When we met again, we met with new pleasure, and, I may add, with a more
decisive preference for each other. It was however three weeks longer,
before the sentiment which trembled upon the tongue, burst from the lips