June 25
This day Sir George and his lady set out for Scotland. He came to take his leave of us; but made an apology for lady Sarah, whose hurry would not permit her to call on us. My brother says, they shall stay some months at her uncle’s, Lord K——. He told me, at parting, he should write to me as soon as he got to his journey’s end, having something very particular to say to me.
July 7
I have read over my journal of the last fortnight, and am startled to think what a poor insignificant being I am! Not a single act worth recording, even to you. My whole life perhaps may have passed so; yet one is apt to fancy, that they are doing something of importance, while they are engaged in the little bustle of the world, be it in ever so trifling a manner; and when you find you have a variety of incidents to relate, in which you yourself were concerned, that your time has not been spent in vain. But for these last fourteen days, had I kept a journal for my cat, I think I should have had as much to say for her.
July 8
I shall grow busy again: I have received the promised letter from Sir George; an extraordinary one it is: but I will not anticipate the contents; read them yourself.
Dear Sidney,July 4, 1706.
I have a serious subject to offer to your consideration, which made me the rather chuse to engage your attention in this manner, than in a conversation between ourselves; liable as that would be to interruptions, objections, and frivolous punctilios, from which you have already suffered so severely.
I have paid so much regard to that decorum of which you are so fond, as never to have mentioned Mr Faulkland’s name to you since you were become a widow, though it is near four months since he returned to England.
As I kept up a correspondence with him when he was abroad, you may be sure I informed him of your reconciliation to your late husband; a reconciliation, which, if you thought it a happiness to you, you were indebted to Faulkland for. This single circumstance it was that inclined him to return to England, which otherwise perhaps he would never again have seen, though the necessity of his affairs here, which he had left at random, required his presence. To avoid giving umbrage to your husband, he repaired privately to his house in the country, where I paid him a visit. Few of his friends, except myself, knew of his being in the kingdom.