I told him I would come, and desired to know where he lived.
He gave me a direction in writing, and when he gave it me he
read it to me, and said, ‘There ’tis, madam, if you dare trust
yourself with me.’ ‘Yes, sir,’ said I, ‘I believe I may venture
to trust you with myself, for you have a wife, you say, and I
don’t want a husband; besides, I dare trust you with my money,
which is all I have in the world, and if that were gone, I may
trust myself anywhere.’
He said some things in jest that were very handsome and
mannerly, and would have pleased me very well if they had
been in earnest; but that passed over, I took the directions,
and appointed to attend him at his house at seven o’clock the
same evening.
When I came he made several proposals for my placing my
money in the bank, in order to my having interest for it; but
still some difficult or other came in the way, which he objected
as not safe; and I found such a sincere disinterested honesty
in him, that I began to muse with myself, that I had certainly
found the honest man I wanted, and that I could never put
myself into better hands; so I told him with a great deal of
frankness that I had never met with a man or woman yet that
I could trust, or in whom I could think myself safe, but that I
saw he was so disinterestedly concerned for my safety, that I
said I would freely trust him with the management of that little
I had, if he would accept to be steward for a poor widow that
could give him no salary.
He smiled and, standing up, with great respect saluted me.
He told me he could not but take it very kindly that I had so
good an opinion of him; that he would not deceive me, that
he would do anything in his power to serve me, and expect
no salary; but that he could not by any means accept of a trust,
that it might bring him to be suspected of self-interest, and that
if I should die he might have disputes with my executors, which
he should be very loth to encumber himself with.
I told him if those were all his objections I would soon remove
them, and convince him that there was not the least room for
any difficulty; for that, first, as for suspecting him, if ever I
should do it, now is the time to suspect him, and not put the
trust into his hands, and whenever I did suspect him, he could
but throw it up then and refuse to go any further. Then, as to
executors, I assured him I had no heirs, nor any relations in
England, and I should alter my condition before I died, and
then his trust and trouble should cease together, which,
however, I had no prospect of yet; but I told him if I died as
I was, it should be all his own, and he would deserve it by
being so faithful to me as I was satisfied he would be.
He changed his countenance at this discourse, and asked me
how I came to have so much good-will for him; and, looking
very much pleased, said he might very lawfully wish he was
a single man for my sake. I smiled, and told him as he was
not, my offer could have no design upon him in it, and to wish,
ashe did, was not to be allowed, ’twas criminal to his wife.
He told me I was wrong. ‘For,’ says he, ‘madam, as I said
before, I have a wife and no wife, and ‘twould be no sin to me
to wish her hanged, if that were all.’ ‘I know nothing of your
circumstances that way, sir,’ said I; ‘but it cannot be innocent
to wish your wife dead.’ ‘I tell you,’ says he again, ‘she is a
wife and no wife; you don’t know what I am, or what she is.’
‘That’s true,’ said I; ‘sir, I do not know what you are, but I