Page:Memoirs of a Woman of Pleasure (1749, vol. 2).pdf/141

 in them he was so addicted to, and which had shatter'd his constitution, and destroy'd his powers of life, in the very point, for which he seem'd chiefly desirous to live; he was grown more delicate, more temperate, and all in course more healthy; his gratitude for which was taking a turn very favourable for my fortune, when once more the caprice of it, dash'd the cup from my lips.

His sister, lady L, for whom he had a great affection, desiring him to accompany her down to Bath for her health, he could not refuse her such a favour, and accordingly, though he counted on staying away from me no more than a week at farthest, he took his leave of me, with an ominous heaviness of heart, and left with me a sum far above the state of his fortune, and very inconsistent with the intended shortness of his journey, but it ended in the longest that can be, and is never but once taken; for, arriv'd at Bath, he was not there two days before he fell into a debauch of drink-