This made Miss Rawlins blush indeed:--Fie, fie, Mrs. Bevis! cried she,
unwilling, I suppose, to be thought absolutely ignorant.

Upon the whole, I began to think that I had not made a bad exchange of
our professing mother, for the unprofessing Mrs. Moore. And indeed the
women and I, and my beloved too, all mean the same thing: we only differ
about the manner of coming at the proposed end.

LETTER XXIX

MR. LOVELACE
[IN CONTINUATION.]

It was now high time to acquaint my spouse, that Captain Tomlinson was
come. And the rather, as the maid told us, that the lady had asked her
if such a gentleman [describing him] was not in the parlour?

Mrs. Moore went up, and requested, in my name, that she would give us
audience.

But she returned, reporting my beloved's desire, that Captain Tomlinson
would excuse her for the present. She was very ill. Her spirits were
too weak to enter into conversation with him; and she must lie down.

I was vexed, and at first extremely disconcerted. The Captain was vexed
too. And my concern, thou mayest believe, was the greater on his
account.

She had been very much fatigued, I own. Her fits in the morning must
have disordered her: and she had carried her resentment so high, that it
was the less wonder she should find herself low, when her raised spirits
had subsided. Very low, I may say; if sinkings are proportioned to
risings; for she had been lifted up above the standard of a common
mortal.

The Captain, however, sent up his own name, that if he could be admitted
to drink one dish of tea with her, he should take it for a favour: and
would go to town, and dispatch some necessary business, in order, if
possible, to leave his morning free to attend her.

But she pleaded a violent head-ache; and Mrs. Moore confirmed the plea to
be just.

I would have had the Captain lodge there that night, as well in
compliment to him, as introductory to my intention of entering myself
upon my new-taken apartment: but his hours were of too much importance to
him to stay the evening.

It was indeed very inconvenient for him, he said, to return in the
morning; but he is willing to do all in his power to heal this breach,
and that as well for the sakes of me and my lady, as for that of his dear
friend Mr. John Harlowe; who must not know how far this misunderstanding
had gone. He would therefore only drink one dish of tea with the ladies
and me.

And accordingly, after he had done so, a