Monday, Aug. 15

I am extremely concerned for thy illness. I should be very sorry to lose thee. Yet, if thou diest so soon, I could wish, from my soul, it had been before the beginning of last April: and this as well for thy sake, as for the sake of the most excellent woman in the world: for then thou wouldst not have had the most crying sin of thy life to answer for.

I was told on Saturday that thou wert very much out of order; and this made me forbear writing till I heard farther. Harry, on his return from thee, confirmed the bad way thou art in. But I hope Lord M. in his unmerited tenderness for thee, thinks the worst of thee. What can it be, Bob.? A violent fever, they say; but attended with odd and severe symptoms.

I will not trouble thee in the way thou art in, with what passes here with Miss Harlowe. I wish thy repentance as swift as thy illness; and as efficacious, if thou diest; for it is else to be feared, that she and you will never meet in one place.

I told her how ill you are. Poor man! said she. Dangerously ill, say you?

Dangerously indeed, Madam!⁠—So Lord M. sends me word!

God be merciful to him, if he die!⁠—said the admirable creature.⁠—Then, after a pause, Poor wretch!⁠—may he meet with the mercy he has not shown!

I send this by a special messenger: for I am impatient to hear how it goes with thee.⁠—If I have received thy last letter, what melancholy reflections will that last, so full of shocking levity, give to