But it was too late: he was too firm fix'd in the
saddle for me to compass flinging him, with all the strug-
gles I could use, some of which only served to further his
point, and at length an irresistible thrust murdered at once
my maidenhead, and almost me. I now lay a bleeding witness
of the necessity impos'd on our sex, to gather the first
honey off the thorns.
"But the pleasure rising as the pain subsided, I was
soon reconciled to fresh trials, and before morning, nothing
on earth could be dearer to me than this rifler of my virgin
sweets: he was every thing to me now. How we agreed to join
fortunes; how we came up to town together, where we lived
some time, till necessity parted us, and drove me into this
course of life, in which I had been long ago battered and
torn to pieces before I came to this age, as much through
my easiness, as through my inclination, had it not been for
my finding refuge in this house: these are all circumstances
which pass the mark I proposed, so that here my narrative
ends."
In the order of our sitting, it was Harriet's turn to
go on. Amongst all the beauties of our sex that I had be-
fore or have since seen, few indeed were the forms that
could dispute excellence with her's; it was not delicate,
but delicacy itself incarnate, such was the symmetry of her
small but exactly fashion'd limbs.
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