key of his closet.'Dear sister,' says he, 'I am very lazy; do step to my closet and fetchmy flute; it lies in such a drawer,' naming a place where he was sureit was not, that she might be a little while a-looking for it.
As soon as she was gone, he related the whole story to me of thediscourse his brother had about me, and of his pushing it at him, andhis concern about it, which was the reason of his contriving this visitto me. I assured him I had never opened my mouth either to his brotheror to anybody else. I told him the dreadful exigence I was in; that mylove to him, and his offering to have me forget that affection andremove it to another, had thrown me down; and that I had a thousandtimes wished I might die rather than recover, and to have the samecircumstances to struggle with as I had before, and that hisbackwardness to life had been the great reason of the slowness of myrecovering. I added that I foresaw that as soon as I was well, I mustquit the family, and that as for marrying his brother, I abhorred thethoughts of it after what had been my case with him, and that he mightdepend upon it I would never see his brother again upon that subject;that if he would break all his vows and oaths and engagements with me,be that between his conscience and his honour and himself; but heshould never be able to say that I, whom he had persuaded to callmyself his wife, and who had given him the liberty to use me as a wife,was not as faithful to him as a wife ought to be, whatever he might beto me.
He was going to reply, and had said that he was sorry I could not bepersuaded, and was a-going to say more, but he heard his sistera-coming, and so did I; and yet I forced out these few words as areply, that I could never be persuaded to love one brother and marryanother. He shook his head and said, 'Then I am ruined,' meaninghimself; and that moment his sister entered the room and told him shecould not find the flute. 'Well,' says he merrily, 'this laziness won'tdo'; so he gets up and goes himself to go to look for it, but comesback without it too; not but that he could have found it, but becausehis mind was a little disturbed, and he had no mind to play; and,besides, the errand he sent his sister on was answered another way; forhe only wanted an opportunity to speak to me, which he gained, thoughnot much to his satisfaction.
I had, however, a great deal of satisfaction in having spoken my mindto him with freedom, and with such an honest plainness, as I haverelated; and though it did not at all work the way I desired, that isto say, to oblige the person to me the more, yet it took from him allpossibility of quitting me but by a downright breach of honour, andgiving up all the faith of a gentleman to me, which he had so oftenengaged by, never to abandon me, but to make me his wife as soon as hecame to his estate.
It was not many weeks after this before I was about the house again,and began to grow well; but I continued melancholy, silent, dull, andretired, which amazed the whole family, except he that knew the reasonof it; yet it was a great while before he took any notice of it, and I,as backward to speak as he, carried respectfully to him, but neveroffered to speak a word to him that was particular of any kindwhatsoever; and this continued for sixteen or seventeen weeks; so that,as I expected every day to be dismissed the family, on account of whatdistaste they had taken another way, in which I had no guilt, so Iexpected to hear no more of this gentleman, after all his solemn vowsand protestations, but to be ruined and abandoned.
At last I broke the way myself in the family for my removing; for beingtalking seriously with the old lady one day, about my own circumstancesin the world, and how my distemper had left a heaviness upon myspirits, that I was not the same thing I was before, the old lady said,'I am afraid, Betty, what I have said to you about my son has had someinfluence upon you, and that you are melancholy on his account; pray,will you let me know how the matter stands with you both, if it may notbe improper? For, as for Robin, he does nothing but rally and banterwhen I speak of it to him.' 'Why, truly, madam,' said I 'that matterstands as I wish it did not, and I shall be very sincere with you init, whatever befalls me for it. Mr. Robert has several times proposedmarriage to me, which is what I had no reason to expect, my poorcircumstances considered; but I have always resisted him, and thatperhaps in terms more positive than became me, considering the regardthat I ought to have for every branch of your family; but,' said I,'madam, I could never so far forget my obligation to you and all yourhouse, to offer to consent to a thing which I know must needs bedisobliging to you, and this I have made my argument to him, and havepositively told him that I would never entertain a thought of that kindunless I had your consent, and his father's also, to whom I was boundby so many invincible obligations.'
'And is this possible, Mrs. Betty?' says the old lady. 'Then you havebeen much juster to us than we have been to you; for we have all lookedupon you as a kind of snare to my son, and I had a proposal to make toyou for your removing, for fear of it; but I had not yet mentioned itto you, because I thought you were not thorough well, and I was afraidof grieving you too much, lest it should throw you down again; for wehave all a respect for you still, though not so much as to have it bethe ruin of my son; but if it be as you say, we have all wronged youvery much.'
'As to the truth of what I say, madam,' said I, 'refer you to your sonhimself; if he will do me any justice, he must tell you the story justas I have told it.'
Away goes the old lady to her daughters and tells them the whole story,just as I had told it her; and they were surprised at it, you may besure, as I believed they would be. One said she could never havethought it; another said Robin was a fool; a third said she would notbelieve a word of it, and she would warrant that Robin would tell thestory another way. But the old gentlewoman, who was resolved to go tothe bottom of it before I could have the least opportunity ofacquainting her son with what had passed, resolved too that she wouldtalk with her son immediately, and to that purpose sent for him, for hewas gone but to a lawyer's house in the town, upon some petty businessof his own, and upon her sending he returned immediately.
Upon his coming up to them, for they were all still together, 'Sitdown, Robin,' says the old lady, 'I must have some talk with you.''With all my heart, madam,' says Robin, looking very merry. 'I hope itis about a good wife, for I am at a great loss in that affair.' 'Howcan that be?' says his mother; 'did not you say you resolved to haveMrs. Betty?' 'Ay, madam,' says Robin, 'but there is one has forbid thebanns.' 'Forbid, the banns!' says his mother; 'who can that be?' 'EvenMrs. Betty herself,' says Robin. 'How so?' says his mother. 'Have youasked her the question, then?' 'Yes, indeed, madam,' says Robin. 'Ihave attacked her in form five times since she was sick, and am beatenoff; the jade is so stout she won't capitulate nor yield upon anyterms, except such as I cannot effectually grant.' 'Explain yourself,'says the mother, 'for I am surprised; I do not understand you. I hopeyou are not in earnest.'
'Why, madam,' says he, 'the case is plain enough upon me, it explainsitself; she won't have me, she says; is not that plain enough? I think'tis plain, and pretty rough too.' 'Well, but,' says the mother, 'youtalk of conditions that you cannot grant; what does she want--asettlement? Her jointure ought to be according to her portion; butwhat fortune does she bring you?' 'Nay, as to fortune,' says Robin,'she is rich enough; I am satisfied in that point; but 'tis I that amnot able to come up to her terms, and she is positive she will not haveme without.'
Here the sisters put in. 'Madam,' says the second sister, ''tisimpossible to be serious with him; he will never give a direct answerto anything; you had better let him alone, and talk no more of it tohim; you know how to dispose of her out of his way if you thought therewas anything in it.' Robin was a little warmed with his sister'srudeness, but he was even with her, and yet with good manners too.'There are two sorts of people, madam,' says he, turning to his mother,'that there is no contending with; that is, a wise body and a fool;'tis a little hard I should engage with both of them together.'
The younger sister then put in. 'We must be fools indeed,' says she,'in my brother's opinion, that he should think we can believe he hasseriously asked Mrs. Betty to marry him, and that she has refused him.'
'Answer, and answer not, say Solomon,' replied her brother. 'When yourbrother had said to your mother that he had asked her no less than fivetimes, and that it was so, that she positively denied him, methinks ayounger sister need not question the truth of it when her mother didnot.' 'My mother, you see, did not understand it,' says the secondsister. 'There's some difference,' says Robin, 'between desiring me toexplain it, and telling me she did not believe it.'
'Well, but, son,' says the old lady, 'if you