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saying? Pardon me if I have said too much. My heart overflowed. I havestruggled with my love to the utmost, and have endeavoured to conceala fever which preys on my vitals, and will, I hope, soon make itimpossible for me ever to offend you more."Mr Jones now fell a trembling as if he had been shaken with the fit ofan ague. Sophia, who was in a situation not very different from his,answered in these words: "Mr Jones, I will not affect to misunderstandyou; indeed, I understand you too well; but, for Heaven's sake, if youhave any affection for me, let me make the best of my way into thehouse. I wish I may be able to support myself thither."Jones, who was hardly able to support himself, offered her his arm,which she condescended to accept, but begged he would not mention aword more to her of this nature at present. He promised he would not;insisting only on her forgiveness of what love, without the leave ofhis will, had forced from him: this, she told him, he knew how toobtain by his future behaviour; and thus this young pair tottered andtrembled along, the lover not once daring to squeeze the hand of hismistress, though it was locked in his.Sophia immediately retired to her chamber, where Mrs Honour and thehartshorn were summoned to her assistance. As to poor Jones, the onlyrelief to his distempered mind was an unwelcome piece of news, which,as it opens a scene of different nature from those in which the readerhath lately been conversant, will be communicated to him in the nextchapter.Chapter vii.In which Mr Allworthy appears on a sick-bed.Mr Western was become so fond of Jones that he was unwilling to partwith him, though his arm had been long since cured; and Jones, eitherfrom the love of sport, or from some other reason, was easilypersuaded to continue at his house, which he did sometimes for afortnight together without paying a single visit at Mr Allworthy's;nay, without ever hearing from thence.Mr Allworthy had been for some days indisposed with a cold, which hadbeen attended with a little fever. This he had, however, neglected; asit was usual with him to do all manner of disorders which did notconfine him to his bed, or prevent his several faculties fromperforming their ordinary functions;--a conduct which we would by nomeans be thought to approve or recommend to imitation; for surely thegentlemen of the Aesculapian art are in the right in advising, thatthe moment the disease has entered at one door, the physician shouldbe introduced at the other: what else is meant by that old adage,_Venienti occurrite morbo?_ "Oppose a distemper at its firstapproach." Thus the doctor and the disease meet in fair and equalconflict; whereas, by giving time to the latter, we often suffer himto fortify and entrench himself, like a French army; so that thelearned gentleman finds it very difficult, and sometimes impossible,to come at the enemy. Nay, sometimes by gaining time the diseaseapplies to the French military politics, and corrupts nature over tohis side, and then all the powers of physic must arrive too late.Agreeable to these observations was, I remember, the complaint of the