for the goodness of that best of men, my noble cousin! His lordship no sooner heard of the widow's distress from me than he immediately settled one hundred and fifty pounds a year upon her during her life.'
'Well! how noble, how generous was that!' said Amelia. 'I declare I begin to love your cousin, Mrs. Ellison.'
'And I declare if you do,' answered she, 'there is no love lost, I verily believe; if you had heard what I heard him say yesterday behind your back---'
'Why, what did he say, Mrs. Ellison?' cries Amelia.
'He said,' answered the other, 'that you was the finest woman his eyes ever beheld.--Ah! it is in vain to wish, and yet I cannot help wishing too.--O, Mrs. Booth! if you had been a single woman, I firmly believe I could have made you the happiest in the world. And I sincerely think I never saw a woman who deserved it more.'
'I am obliged to you, madam,' cries Amelia, 'for your good opinion; but I really look on myself already as the happiest woman in the world. Our circumstances, it is true, might have been a little more fortunate; but O, my dear Mrs. Ellison! what fortune can be put in the balance with such a husband as mine?'
'I am afraid, dear madam,' answered Mrs. Ellison, 'you would not hold the scale fairly.--I acknowledge, indeed, Mr. Booth is a very pretty gentleman; Heaven forbid I should endeavour to lessen him in your opinion; yet, if I was to be brought to confession, I could not help saying I see where the superiority lies, and that the men have more reason to envy Mr. Booth than the women have to envy his lady.'
'Nay, I will not bear this,' replied Amelia. 'You will forfeit all my love if you have the least disrespectful opinion of my husband. You do not know him, Mrs. Ellison; he is the best, the kindest, the worthiest of all his sex. I have observed, indeed, once or twice before, that you have taken some dislike to him. I cannot conceive for what reason. If he hath said or done anything to disoblige you, I am sure I can justly acquit him of design. His extreme vivacity makes him sometimes a little too heedless; but, I am convinced, a more innocent heart, or one more void of offence, was never in a human bosom.'
'Nay, if you grow serious,' cries Mrs. Ellison, 'I have done. How is it possible you should suspect I had taken any dislike to a man to whom I have always shewn so perfect a regard; but to say I think him, or almost any other man in the world, worthy of yourself, is not within my power with truth. And since you force the confession from me, I declare, I think such beauty, such sense, and such goodness united, might aspire without vanity to the arms of any monarch in Europe.'
'Alas! my dear Mrs. Ellison,' answered Amelia, 'do you think happiness and a crown so closely united? how many miserable women have lain in the arms of kings?--Indeed, Mrs. Ellison, if I had all the merit you compliment me with, I should think it all fully rewarded with such a man as, I thank Heaven, hath fallen to my lot; nor would I, upon my soul, exchange that lot with any queen in the universe.'
'Well, there are enow of our sex,' said Mrs. Ellison, 'to keep you in countenance; but I shall never forget the beginning of a song of Mr. Congreve's, that my husband was so fond of that he was always singing it:--
Love's but a frailty of the mind,
When 'tis not with ambition join'd.
Love without interest makes but an unsavoury dish, in my opinion.'
'And pray how long hath this been your opinion?' said Amelia, smiling.
'Ever since I was born,' answered Mrs. Ellison; 'at least, ever since I can remember.'
'And have you never,' said Amelia, 'deviated from this generous way of thinking?'
'Never once,' answered the other, 'in the whole course of my life.'
'O, Mrs. Ellison! Mrs. Ellison!' cries Amelia; 'why do we ever blame those who are disingenuous in confessing their faults, when we are so often ashamed to own ourselves in the right? Some women now, in my situation, would be angry that you had not made confidantes of them;
