chance. This, flying open, discovered a fine yellow petticoat,
beautifully edged round the bottom with a narrow piece of half
gold lace which was now almost become fringe: beneath this
appeared another petticoat stiffened with whalebone, vulgarly
called a hoop, which hung six inches at least below the other; and
under this again appeared an under-garment of that colour which
Ovid intends when he says,

----Qui color albus erat nunc est contrarius albo.

She likewise displayed two pretty feet covered with silk and
adorned with lace, and tied, the right with a handsome piece of
blue ribbon; the left, as more unworthy, with a piece of yellow
stuff, which seemed to have been a strip of her upper petticoat.
Such was the lovely creature whom Mr. Wild attended. She received
him at first with some of that coldness which women of strict
virtue, by a commendable though sometimes painful restraint,
enjoin themselves to their lovers. The snuff-box, being produced,
was at first civilly, and indeed gently, refused; but on a second
application accepted. The tea-table was soon called for, at which
a discourse passed between these young lovers, which, could we set
it down with any accuracy, would be very edifying as well as
entertaining to our reader; let it suffice then that the wit,
together with, the beauty, of this young creature, so inflamed the
passion of Wild, which, though an honourable sort of a passion,
was at the same time so extremely violent, that it transported him
to freedoms too offensive to the nice chastity of Laetitia, who
was, to confess the truth, more indebted to her own strength for
the preservation of her virtue than to the awful respect or
backwardness of her lover; he was indeed so very urgent in his