All this time, my papers, that I buried under the rose-bush, lay there
still; and I begged for leave to send a letter to you. So I should, he
said, if he might read it first. But this did not answer my design; and
yet I would have sent you such a letter as he might see, if I had been
sure my danger was over. But that I cannot; for he now seems to take
another method, and what I am more afraid of, because, may be, he may
watch an opportunity, and join force with it, on occasion, when I am
least prepared: for now he seems to abound with kindness, and talks of
love without reserve, and makes nothing of allowing himself in the
liberty of kissing me, which he calls innocent; but which I do not like,
and especially in the manner he does it: but for a master to do it at all
to a servant, has meaning too much in it, not to alarm an honest body.


Wednesday morning.

I find I am watched and suspected still very close; and I wish I was with
you; but that must not be, it seems, this fortnight. I don't like this
fortnight; and it will be a tedious and a dangerous one to me, I doubt.

My master just now sent for me down to take a walk with him in the
garden: but I like him not at all, nor his ways; for he would have, all
the way, his arm about my waist, and said abundance of fond things to me,
enough to make me proud, if his design had not been apparent. After
walking about, he led me into a little alcove, on the farther part of the
garden; and really made me afraid of myself, for he began to be very
teasing, and made me sit on his knee; and was so often kissing me, that I
said, Sir, I don't like to be here at all, I assure you. Indeed you make
me afraid!--And what made me the more so, was what he once said to Mrs.