sing to them all, though less to the mother,
because of what I had said to her. As to the daughters, they stood
mute a great while; but the mother said with some passion, 'Well, I had
heard this before, but I could not believe it; but if it is so, they we
have all done Betty wrong, and she has behaved better than I ever
expected.' 'Nay,' says the eldest sister, 'if it be so, she has acted
handsomely indeed.' 'I confess,' says the mother, 'it was none of her
fault, if he was fool enough to take a fancy to her; but to give such
an answer to him, shows more respect to your father and me than I can
tell how to express; I shall value the girl the better for it as long
as I know her.' 'But I shall not,' says Robin, 'unless you will give
your consent.' 'I'll consider of that a while,' says the mother; 'I
assure you, if there were not some other objections in the way, this
conduct of hers would go a great way to bring me to consent.' 'I wish
it would go quite through it,' says Robin; 'if you had a much thought
about making me easy as you have about making me rich, you would soon
consent to it.'

'Why, Robin,' says the mother again, 'are you really in earnest? Would
you so fain have her as you pretend?' 'Really, madam,' says Robin, 'I
think 'tis hard you should question me upon that head after all I have
said. I won't say that I will have her; how can I resolve that point,
when you see I cannot have her without your consent? Besides, I am not
bound to marry at all. But this I will say, I am in earnest in, that I
will never have anybody else if I can help it; so you may determine for
me. Betty or nobody is the word, and the question which of the two
shall be in your breast to decide, madam, provided only, that my
good-humoured sisters here may have no vote in it.'

All this was dreadful to me, for the mother began to yield, and Robin
pressed her home on it. On the other hand, she advised with the eldest
son, and he used all the arguments in the world to persuade her to
consent; alleging his brother's passionate love for me, and my generous
regard to the family, in refusing my own advantages upon such a nice
point of honour, and a thousand such things. And as to the father, he
was a man in a hurry of public affairs and getting money, seldom at
home, thoughtful of the main chance, but left all those things to his
wife.

You may easily believe, that when the plot was thus, as they thought,
broke out, and that every o