and (hating the love of women) as honest as gold. How do you
like the simile?"

There is, perhaps, a touch of affected cynicism in the suggestion that
Mrs. Sterne's liking for one of her husband's friends was wholly based
upon the expectation that he would rid her of her husband; but mutual
indifference must, it is clear, have reached a pretty advanced stage
before such a remark could, even half in jest, be possible. And with
one more longing, lingering look at the scenes which he had quitted
for a lot like that of the Duke of Buckingham's dog, upon whom his
master pronounced the maledictory wish that "he were married and lived
in the country," this characteristic letter concludes:

"Oh, Lord! now are you going to Ranelagh to-night, and I am sitting
sorrowful as the prophet was when the voice cried out to him
and said, 'What do'st thou here, Elijah?' 'Tis well that the spirit
does not make the same at Coxwold, for unless for the few sheep
left me to take care of in the wilderness, I might as well, nay, better,
be at Mecca. When we find we can, by a shifting of places, run
away from ourselves, what think you of a jaunt there before we
finally pay a visit to the Vale of Jehoshaphat? As ill a fame as we
have, I trust I shall one day or other see you face to face, so tell the
two colonels if they love good company to live righteously and soberly,
_as you do_, and then they will have no doubts or dangers within
or without them. Present my best and warmest wishes to them,
and advise the eldest to prop up his spirits, and get a rich dowager
before the conclusion of the peace. Why will not the advice suit
both, _par nobile fratrum?_"

[Footnote 1: It is curious to note, as a point in the chronology of