“No,” says the eldest sister, “I dare answer for my brother; he knows the world better.”
Thus the discourse ended, but it left the elder brother quite confounded. He concluded his brother had made a full discovery, and he began to doubt whether I had been concerned in it or not; but with all his management he could not bring it about to get at me. At last he was so perplexed that he was quite desperate, and resolved he would come into my chamber and see me, whatever came of it. In order to do this, he contrived it so, that one day after dinner, watching his eldest sister till he could see her go upstairs, he runs after her. “Hark ye, sister,” says he, “where is this sick woman? May not a body see her?” “Yes,” says the sister, “I believe you may; but let me go first a little, and I’ll tell you.” So she ran up to the door and gave me notice, and presently called to him again. “Brother,” says she, “you may come if you please.” So in he came, just in the same kind of rant. “Well,” says he at the door as he came in, “where is this sick body that’s in love? How do ye do, Mrs. Betty?” I would have got up out of my chair, but was so weak I could not for a good while; and he saw it, and his sister too, and she said, “Come, do not strive to stand up; my brother desires no ceremony, especially now you are so weak.” “No, no, Mrs. Betty, pray sit still,” says he, and so sits himself down in a chair over against me, and appeared as if he was mighty merry.
He talked a lot of rambling stuff to his sister and to me, sometimes of one thing, sometimes of another, on purpose to amuse his sister, and every now and then would turn it upon the old story, directing it to me. “Poor Mrs. Betty,” says he, “it is a sad thing to be in love; why, it has reduced you sadly.” At last I spoke a little. “I am glad to see you so merry, sir,” says I; “but I think the doctor might have found something better to do than to make his game at his patients. If I had been ill of no other distemper, I know the proverb too well to have let him come to me.” “What proverb?” says he, “Oh! I remember it now. What—
‘Where love is the case,
The doctor’s an ass.’
Is not that it, Mrs. Betty?” I smiled and said nothing. “Nay,” says he, “I think the effect has proved it to be love, for it seems the doctor has been able to do you but little service; you mend very slowly, they say. I doubt there’s somewhat in it, Mrs. Betty; I doubt you are sick of the incurables, and that is love.” I smiled and said, “No, indeed, sir, that’s none of my distemper.”
We had a deal of such discourse, and sometimes others that signified as little. By and by he asked me to sing them a song, at which I smiled, and said my singing days were over. At last he asked me if he should play upon his flute to me; his sister said she believe it would hurt me, and that my head could not bear it. I bowed, and said, No, it would not hurt me. “And, pray, madam,” said I, “do not hinder it; I love the music of the flute very much.” Then his sister said, “Well, do, then, brother.” With that he pulled out the key of his closet. “Dear sister,” says he, “I am very lazy; do step to my closet and fetch my flute; it lies in such a drawer,” naming a place where he was sure it 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 the discourse his brother had about me, and of his pushing it at him, and his concern about it, which was the reason of his contriving this visit to me. I assured him I had never opened my mouth either to his brother or to anybody else. I told him the dreadful exigence I was in; that my love to him, and his offering to have me forget that affection and remove it to another, had thrown me down; and that I had a thousand times wished I might die rather than recover, and to have the same circumstances to struggle with as I had before, and that his backwardness to life had been the great reason of the slowness of my recovering. I added that I foresaw that as soon as I was well, I must quit the family, and that as for marrying his brother, I abhorred the thoughts of it after what had been my case with him, and that he might depend 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 he should never be able to say that I, whom he had persuaded to call myself 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 be to me.
He was going to reply, and had said that he was sorry I could not be persuaded, and was a-going to say more, but he heard his sister a-coming, and so did I; and yet I forced out these few words as a reply, that I could never be persuaded to
