Page:Maria, or, The wanderer reclaim'd.pdf/7

Rh But I will not tire you with the repetition of circumſtances (the writer of Clariſſa might make a volume of them.) Suffice it to ſay, that we met again & again, by the interpoſition of this maid: he vowed eternal faith and conſtancy; he vowed, and I had not the leaſt doubt of his veracity. My heart was perfectly his. Soon as he perceived this, he prefſed for a conſummation of our happineſs, for which I longed no leſs ardently, then he profeffed to do: and declaring his motives wholly honourable, propoſed at laſt, that I ſhould run away with him from my father’s houſe; as there were no hopes of procuring his conſent, whoſe cruel treatment of me he never failed to aggravate; and he declared, that as ſoon as we got to London, he would make me his wife.— The offer was too pleaſing to be rejected; it was a deliverance from worſe than Ægyptian bondage, and amidſt all his diſcourſes on paternal authority, my father had not taught me the obligations of filial duty; I reſolved to comply; love ſtrengthened my reſolution: my mind applauded it. I had not the leaſt apprehenſion of aught, but conſummate felicity, yet weakly and madly thought, that come what would come, I could never be in a worſe or more uneaſy ſituation than under my father’s ſtern frown. Alas, how hath experience ſhown me my miſtake! Would God, all children might learn from me, that the auſteriry of a parent