flew to me, took me in his arms, and, kissing me very eagerly,
and with the greatest passion imaginable, he held me fast till
he called for a pen and ink, and then told me he could not wait
the tedious writing on the glass, but, pulling out a piece of
paper, he began and wrote again–
‘Be mine, with all your poverty.’
I took his pen, and followed him immediately, thus–
‘Yet secretly you hope I lie.’
He told me that was unkind, because it was not just, and that
I put him upon contradicting me, which did not consist with
good manners, any more than with his affection; and therefore,
since I had insensibly drawn him into this poetical scribble, he
begged I would not oblige him to break it off; so he writes
again–
‘Let love alone be our debate.’
I wrote again–
‘She loves enough that does not hate.’
This he took for a favour, and so laid down the cudgels, that
is to say, the pen; I say, he took if for a favour, and a mighty
one it was, if he had known all. However, he took it as I meant
it, that is, to let him think I was inclined to go on with him, as
indeed I had all the reason in the world to do, for he was the
best-humoured, merry sort of a fellow that I ever met with,
and I often reflected on myself how doubly criminal it was to
deceive such a man; but that necessity, which pressed me to
a settlement suitable to my condition, was my authority for it;
and certainly his affection to me, and the goodness of his temper,
however they might argue against using him ill, yet they strongly
argued to me that he would better take the disappointment
than some fiery-tempered wretch, who might have nothing to
recommend him but those passions which would serve only to
make a woman miserable all her days.
Besides, though I jested with him (as he supposed it) so
often about my poverty, yet, when he found it to be true, he
had foreclosed all manner of objection, seeing, whether he
was in jest or in earnest, he had declared he took me without
any regard to my portion, and, whether I was in jest or in
earnest, I had declared myself to be very poor; so that, in a
word, I had him fast both ways; and though he might say
afterwards he was cheated, yet he could never say that I had
cheated him.
He pursued me close after this, and as I saw there was no need
to fear losing him, I played the indifferent part with him longer
than prudence might otherwise have dictated to me. But I
considered how much this caution and indifference would give
me the advantage over him, when I should come to be under
the necessity of owning my own circumstances to him; and I
managed it the more warily, because I found he inferred from
thence, as indeed he ought to do, that I either had the more
money or the more judgment, and would not venture at all.
I took the freedom one day, after we had talked pretty close
to the subject, to tell him that it was true I had received the
compliment of a lover from him, namely, that he would take
me without inquiring into my fortune, and I would make him
a suitable return in this, viz. that I would make as little inquiry
into his as consisted with reason, but I hoped he would allow
me to ask a few questions, which he would answer or not as
he thought fit; and that I would not be offended if he did not
answer me at all; one of these questions related to our manner
of living, and the place where, because I had heard he had a
great plantation in Virginia, and that he had talked of going
to live there, and I told him I did not care to be transported.
He began from this discourse to let me voluntarily into all
his affairs, and to tell me in a frank, open way all his