You earnestly desire to know the
particulars of our adventure at Gloucester, which are briefly
these, and I hope they will go no further: -- Liddy had been so
long copped up in a boarding-school, which, next to a nunnery, is
the worst kind of seminary that ever was contrived for young
women, that she became as inflammable as touch-wood; and going to
a play in holiday-time, --'sdeath, I'm ashamed to tell you! she
fell in love with one of the actors -- a handsome young fellow
that goes by the name of Wilson. The rascal soon perceived the
impression he had made, and managed matters so as to see her at a
house where she went to drink tea with her governess. -- This was
the beginning of a correspondence, which they kept up by means of
a jade of a milliner, who made and dressed caps for the girls at
the boarding-school. When we arrived at Gloucester, Liddy came to
stay at lodgings with her aunt, and Wilson bribed the maid to
deliver a letter into her own hands; but it seems Jery had
already acquired so much credit with the maid (by what means he
best knows) that she carried the letter to him, and so the whole
plot was discovered. The rash boy, without saying a word of the
matter to me, went immediately in search of Wilson; and, I
suppose, treated him with insolence enough.
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