Mrs. Godfrey brought me afterward some more favorable accounts of
their disposition, and would have drawn me on again; but I declared
absolutely my resolution to have nothing more to do with that family.
This was resented by the Godfreys; we differ'd, and they removed,
leaving me the whole house, and I resolved to take no more inmates.
But this affair having turned my thoughts to marriage, I look'd
round me and made overtures of acquaintance in other places;
but soon found that, the business of a printer being generally
thought a poor one, I was not to expect money with a wife,
unless with such a one as I should not otherwise think agreeable.
In the mean time, that hard-to-be-governed passion of youth hurried
me frequently into intrigues with low women that fell in my way,
which were attended with some expense and great inconvenience,
besides a continual risque to my health by a distemper which of
all things I dreaded, though by great good luck I escaped it.
A friendly correspondence as neighbors and old acquaintances
had continued between me and Mrs. Read's family, who all had a
regard for me from the time of my first lodging in their house.
I was often invited there and consulted in their affairs,
wherein I sometimes was of service. I piti'd poor Miss Read's
unfortunate situation, who was generally dejected, seldom cheerful,
and avoided company. I considered my giddiness and inconstancy
when in London as in a great degree the cause of her unhappiness,
tho' the mother was good enough to think the fault more her own
than mine, as she had prevented our marrying before I went thither,
and persuaded the other match in my absence.
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