grandfather, Lord Haly, when their coach was suddenly stopped near
Charing Cross by a number of bravos, both on horseback and on foot--the
'Roaring Boys and Mohawks,' who were not extinct even in Addison's time.
They lifted the affrighted girl out of the carriage, and placed her in
one which had six horses; they then set off for Uxbridge, and were
overtaken; but the outrage ended in marriage, and Elizabeth became the
unhappy, neglected Countess of Rochester. Yet she loved him--perhaps in
ignorance of all that was going on whilst _she_ stayed with her four
children at home.

'If,' she writes to him, 'I could have been troubled at anything, when I
had the happiness of receiving a letter from you, I should be so,
because you did not name a time when I might hope to see you, the
uncertainty of which very much afflicts me.... Lay your commands upon me
what I am to do, and though it be to forget my children, and the long
hope I have lived in of seeing you, yet will I endeavour to obey you; or
in the memory only torment myself, without giving you the trouble of
putting you in mind that there lives a creature as

'Your faithful, humble servant.'

And he, in reply: 'I went away (to Rochester) like a rascal, without
taking leave, dear wife. It is an unpolished way of proceeding, which a
modest man ought to be ashamed of. I have left you a prey to your own
imaginations amongst my relations, the worst of damnations. But there
will come an hour of deliverance, till when, may my mother be merciful
unto you! So I commit you to what I shall ensue, woman to woman, wife to
mother, in hopes of a future appearance in glory....

'Pray write as often as you have leisure, to your