He hinted to me, that he had received a letter from Lady Betty, and another (as I understood him) from one of the Miss Montagues. If they take notice of me in them, I wonder that he did not acquaint me with the contents. I am afraid, my dear, that his relations are among those who think I have taken a rash and inexcusable step. It is not to my credit to let even them know how I have been frighted out of myself: and yet perhaps they would hold me unworthy of their alliance, if they were to think my flight a voluntary one. O my dear, how uneasy to us are our reflections upon every doubtful occurrence, when we know we have been prevailed upon to do a wrong thing!
Sunday Morning.
Ah! this man, my dear! We have had warmer dialogues than ever yet we have had. At fair argument, I find I need not fear him;90 but he is such a wild, such an ungovernable creature (he reformed!) that I am half afraid of him.
He again, on my declaring myself uneasy at his stay with me here, proposed that I would put myself into Lady Betty’s protection; assuring me that he thought he could not leave me at Mrs. Sorlings’s with safety to myself. And upon my declining to do that, for the reasons I gave you in my last,91 he urged me to make a demand of my estate.
He knew it, I told him, to be my resolution not to litigate with my father.
Nor would he put me upon it, he replied, but as the last thing. But if my spirit would not permit me to be obliged, as I called it, to anybody, and yet if my relations would refuse me my own, he knew not how I could keep up that spirit, without being put to inconveniences, which would give him infinite concern—Unless—unless—unless, he said, hesitating, as if afraid to speak out—unless I would take the only method I could take, to obtain the possession of my own.
What is that, Sir?
Sure the man saw by my looks, when he came with his creeping unless’s
, that I guessed what he meant.
Ah! Madam, can you be at a loss to know what that method is?—They will not dispute with a man that right which they contest with you.
Why said he with a man, instead of with him? Yet he looked as if he wanted to be encouraged to say more.
So, Sir, you would have me employ a lawyer, would you, notwithstanding what I have ever declared as to litigating with my father?
No, I would not, my dearest creature, snatching my hand, and pressing it with his lips—except you would make me the lawyer.
Had he said me at first, I should have been above the affectation of mentioning a lawyer.
I blushed. The man pursued not the subject so ardently, but that it was more easy as well as more natural to avoid it than to fall into it.
Would to Heaven he might, without offending!—But I so overawed him!—(overawed him!—Your92 notion, my dear!)—And so the overawed, bashful man went off from the subject, repeating his proposal, that I would demand my own estate, or empower some man of the law to demand it, if I would not
(he put in) empower a happier man to demand it. But it could not be amiss, he thought, to acquaint my two trustees, that I intended to assume it.
I should know better what to do, I told him, when he was at a distance from me, and known to be so. I suppose, Sir, that if my father propose my return, and engage never to mention Solmes to me, nor any other man, but by my consent, and I agree, upon that condition, to think no more of you, you will acquiesce.
I was willing to try whether he had the regard to all of my previous declarations, which he pretended to have to some of them.
He was struck all of a heap.
What say you, Mr. Lovelace? You know, all you mean is for my good. Surely I am my own mistress: surely I need not ask your leave to make what terms I please for myself, so long as I break none with you?
He hemm’d twice or thrice—Why, Madam—why, Madam, I cannot say—then pausing—and rising from his seat with petulance; I see plainly enough, said he, the reason why none of my proposals can be accepted: at last I am to be a sacrifice to your reconciliation with your implacable family.
It has always been your respectful way, Mr. Lovelace, to treat my family in this free manner. But pray, Sir, when you call others implacable, see that you deserve not the same censure yourself.
He must needs say, there was no love lost between some of my family and him; but he had not deserved of them what they had of him.
Yourself being judge, I suppose, Sir?
All the world, you yourself, Madam, being judge.
Then, Sir, let me tell you, had you been less upon your defiances, they would not have been irritated so much against you. But nobody ever heard, that avowed despite to the relations of a person was a proper courtship, either to that person, or to her friends.
Well, Madam, all that I know is, that their malice against me is such, that, if
