a speech; but cried, "Whatever you may have heard, you cannot be
acquainted with all the strange accidents which have occasioned your
seeing me in a place which at our last parting was so unlikely that I
should ever have been found in; nor can you know the cause of all that
I have uttered, and which, I am convinced, you never expected to have
heard from my mouth. If these circumstances raise your curiosity, I
will satisfy it."

He answered, that curiosity was too mean a word to express his ardent
desire of knowing her story. Upon which, with very little previous
ceremony, she began to relate what is written in the following
chapter.

But before we put an end to this it may be necessary to whisper a word
or two to the critics, who have, perhaps, begun to express no less
astonishment than Mr. Booth, that a lady in whom we had remarked a
most extraordinary power of displaying softness should, the very next
moment after the words were out of her mouth, express sentiments
becoming the lips of a Dalila, Jezebel, Medea, Semiramis, Parysatis,
Tanaquil, Livilla, Messalina, Agrippina, Brunichilde, Elfrida, Lady
Macbeth, Joan of Naples, Christina of Sweden, Katharine Hays, Sarah
Malcolm, Con Philips,[Footnote: Though last not least.] or any other
heroine of the tender sex, which history, sacred or profane, ancient
or modern, false or true, hath recorded.

We desire such critics to remember that it is the same English
climate, in which, on the lovely 10th of June, under a serene sky, the
amorous Jacobite, kissing the odoriferous zephyr's breath, gathers a
nosegay of white roses to deck the whiter breast of Celia; and in
which, on the 11th of June, the very next day, the boisterous Boreas,