any other; but it was nothing to a man who flattered himself to pass the
remainder of it in the height of bliss. However, he began to wonder at
so many precautions in the absence of a husband his imagination, by a
thousand delicious and tender ideas supported him some time against the
torments of impatience and the inclemency of the weather; but he felt his
imagination, notwithstanding, cooling by degrees; and two hours, which
seemed to him as tedious as two whole ages, having passed, and not the
least notice being taken of him, either from the door or from the window,
he began to reason with himself upon the posture of his affairs, and what
was the fittest conduct for him to pursue in this emergency: "What if
I should rap at this cursed door," said he; "for if my fate requires that
I should perish, it is at least more honourable to die in the house than
to be starved to death in the garden but then," continued he, "I may,
thereby, perhaps, expose a person whom some unforeseen accident may, at
this very instant, have reduced to greater perplexity than even I myself
am in." This thought supplied him with a necessary degree of patience
and fortitude against the enemies he had to contend with; he therefore
began to walk quickly to and fro, with resolution to wait, as long as he
could keep alive, the end of an adventure which had such an uncomfortable
beginning. All this was to no purpose; for though he used every effort
to keep himself warm, and though muffled up in a thick cloak, yet he
began to be benumbed in all his limbs, and the cold gained the ascendancy
over all his amorous vivacity and eagerness. Daybreak was not far off,
and judging now that, though the accursed door should even be opened, it
would be to no purpose, he returned, as well as he could, to the place
from whence he had set out upon this wonderful expedition.

All the faggots that were in the cottage were hardly able to unfreeze
him: the more he reflected on his adventure, the circumstances attending
it appeared still the more strange and unaccountable; but so far from