remit these duties when my bondage becomes intolerable.'
This threat, I thought, would serve to keep him in check, if
anything would.

I believe he was much disappointed that I did not feel his
offensive sayings more acutely, for when he had said anything
particularly well calculated to hurt my feelings, he would stare
me searchingly in the face, and then grumble against my
'marble heart' or my 'brutal insensibility.' If I had bitterly
wept and deplored his lost affection, he would, perhaps, have
condescended to pity me, and taken me into favour for a
while, just to comfort his solitude and console him for the
absence of his beloved Annabella, until he could meet her
again, or some more fitting substitute. Thank heaven, I am
not so weak as that! I was infatuated once with a foolish,
besotted affection, that clung to him in spite of his unworthi-
ness, but it is fairly gone now--wholly crushed and withered
away; and he has none but himself and his vices to thank
for it.

At first (in compliance with his sweet lady's injunctions,
I suppose), he abstained wonderfully well from seeking to
solace his cares in wine; but at length he began to relax his
virtuous efforts, and now and then exceeded a little, and still
continues to do so; nay, sometimes, not a little. When he
is under the exciting influence of these excesses, he sometimes
fires up and attempts to play the brute; and then I take little
pains to suppress my scorn and disgust. When he is under
the depressing influence of the after-consequences, he bemoans
his sufferings and his errors, and charges them both upon me;
he knows such indulgence injures his health, and does him
more harm than good; but he says I drive him to it by my
unnatural, unwomanly conduct; it will be the ruin of him
in the end, but it is all my fault; and then I am roused to
defend myself, sometimes with bitter recrimination. This is
a kind of injustice I cannot patiently endure. Have I not
laboured long and hard to save him from this very vice?
Would I not labour still to deliver him from it if I could?
But could I do so by fawning upon him and caressing him

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