Three days afterwards, we did the same but she could not get away early. One day I went to the grotto, but neither she nor Joey were there. — The dog was better and at home. I got her to my room and had a hurried fuck one afternoon when my aunt was out, and made her a present, and that week I went home.

A few months afterwards, being at my aunt's, I heard she was married. Joey had left also; aunt said she could not manage him, and he had been put to a boarding school. A few years afterwards he was sent to a colony by his parents — they could not manage him. I never disclosed to Tomlin what I knew about her and Joey.

After visiting such of my relations as I intended, I returned to London, and whored quietly as heretofore. My one remedy when miserable, was a woman. When I wanted a very quiet one, I went to Camille — she was always desirous of knowing what I did when away from her so long, and she did not get the truth. Gabrielle had come back to England, but she seemed a bird of passage, appearing and disappearing often, and I had her a few times; this variety of woman is very charming.

Chapter VI

My uncle's in the North. • Cousin Hannah. • Mop-sticks. • The peep in the hayfield. • At a ball. • The drive next day. • After dinner. • The drawing-room sofa. • A tale told. • Solitude, twilight, and opportunity. • Consequences. • Fear of detection. • Cunning devices. • Hannah's bed room. • Aunt returns. • A night's pleasure. • Morning regrets. • At breakfast. • Against the wall. • Bates, the maid. • Gesticulations and indications. • Hannah's dream. • Nearly caught.

Although I went with women promiscuously, it was only with those of a high class; but variety seemed every thing to me. Every pretty gay woman attracted me, and I had an intense curiosity to see their cunts, more it seems to me than to possess them; tho I don't recollect many whom my prick did not enter after my eyesight had been gratified. It is surprizing to myself how for a time I recollected this great variety of cunt; for I saw five or six fresh ones a week, and one week I had ten. It was one in the afternoon before dinner, and the second after dinner, when I had two.

Then I went on a visit to one of my uncles in the North. He had married a prudish sort of woman, and they lived on their fortune and on their estate which was mainly hers. — He let his farms reserving the game, and I went to see him usually once a year, and generally when game was to be shot. I had only to write to say I was coming, for my aunt liked me tho she said I was wild, “But who would wonder at it.” They had children, all of whom were married but one girl, Letitia, who lived at home. One cousin named Hannah was married to an officer who had gone to India, and she had gone to her father's home to await his arrangements, which did not quite depend upon himself. She was then about going out to him. They had been married four years and had no children, had always lived at hotels or in lodgings, for he had been obliged to move about so much with his Regiment, that they had never had a settled home. It was rumoured that they did not lead a very loving life. Yet I never heard anything urged against either him, or her. — He was quite a gentleman, but poor, and had been gone abroad six or nine months at the time I speak of. A letter from him naming the time of her departure to India was expected. The post only then came in about once in three weeks, or less frequently.

Hannah had been fond of me as a girl, but it was not returned by me. I was about five years older than her. She was so thin when young, that she was the subject of all sorts of jokes. We used to call her lanky, mop-sticks, and scraggs; and I could not bear scraggy girls. She continued scraggy till about twenty, when she bloomed in to a new woman, and soon after she was married, fattened into a superb one. It was almost impossible to think she was the scraggs of former days. The male and his sperm agreed with her and had helped, I expect, to cover her bones; but it never swelled her belly.

When Fred and I were about seventeen or eighteen years old, and old enough not to have troubled our-selves about young girls, we played with her the same trick in a hay field that we had done with Fred's sisters when we were boys. “Let's look at mopstick's thighs, I wonder if she has any hair on her cunt,” said he one day. She was rather too old for such an attempt, but it was successful. We pelted each other with hay, Fred held her down and covered her head, and I lifted her petticoats whilst she was struggling. Fred in his turn pulled her out from under the hay exposing her thighs, and we both saw her cunt for a moment only. It was hairless. The girl fancied some trick had been played on her, for she got up in a temper, stood colouring scarlet, looking first at me and then at Fred in a peculiar way, and tears came into her eyes. We were suspected, evidently. “Come along Hannah,” I said. “Shan't,” said she pouting, “I'll go to Mamma,” and off she went. “I think mopsticks smells a rat,” said Fred, and we were rather uneasy about it, but suppose the girl never did say anything.

I only saw Hannah once or twice a year as she grew older, and never without thinking of her skeleton legs, so watched her fattening in after years with much interest. Fred used to say her bum-cheeks were not bigger than apple dumplings; I had not seen her for a couple of years, at the time I tell of, and was delighted with her altered appearance. Yet, still I recalled to mind the long hairless slit between the two broom-stick thighs, and wondered how the apparatus and its surroundings looked now. We were thrown together daily and nearly all day; she still called me Walter, and I called her Hannah, tho I heard her husband did not approve of it. Neither did my aunt who used to say that it would be better to address each other as Mr. and Mrs.

My uncle spent most of his time in field-sports, he was much liked and invited to fishings and shootings far and near. When I had been there three days, off he went on a visit, taking his guns and rods, and his unmarried daughter with him, leaving me to stop as long as I liked at ''K . My aunt and I, cousin Hannah, were then alone. So Hannah was much more with me than before, but I did not take much notice of her until I got lewed. Then gradually my lust came on strong, and I resolved to go to D**l**g**n and get a woman. We were about two miles from town.

My uncle's house was at the end of a quiet village. It had a ground and one storey above, only; and kitchens on the ground floor, separated from the other part by a lobby, shut off by a door. Like other gentle-men's houses of that class which were old built, it stood in beautiful grounds. When my prick began to irritate me, a lewed pleasure came to me in looking at Hannah, and thinking it was months since her quim had had a stiff one up it. In a delicate way I alluded to her being a half widow, and I a half widower. — “Don't you feel dull when you get to bed,” said I. “Don't you,” said she, and we both laughed. The joking was never more direct than that, but I was sure it had occurred to her that I meant to say “You have nobody to fuck you, Hannah.” I never however dreamed of trying to have her, for as often said, I esteemed it disgraceful for a man not to respect his own family, and I objected always, on principle, to interfering with other men's wives, tho unfortunately I have been seduced into breaking this rule.

There was a good deal of difficulty in getting at the servants of the house, four in number. The cook was the wife of the coachman and looked closely after the other three, who were nice, fresh-coloured bitches; and seeing no chance there, I intended to have a free lady at the town of D* * *n. I should add that there were no men servants kept in the house. The parlor maid seemed to be always looking at me, and I had kissed her on a former visit, had even given a poke with my finger below her waist, but nothing more; and she now looked at me severely.