ne thought they knew how things were
carried, it was not so difficult or so dangerous for the elder brother,
whom nobody suspected of anything, to have a freer access to me than
before; nay, the mother, which was just as he wished, proposed it to
him to talk with Mrs. Betty. 'For it may be, son,' said she, 'you may
see farther into the thing than I, and see if you think she has been so
positive as Robin says she has been, or no.' This was as well as he
could wish, and he, as it were, yielding to talk with me at his
mother's request, she brought me to him into her own chamber, told me
her son had some business with me at her request, and desired me to be
very sincere with him, and then she left us together, and he went and
shut the door after her.

He came back to me and took me in his arms, and kissed me very
tenderly; but told me he had a long discourse to hold with me, and it
was not come to that crisis, that I should make myself happy or
miserable as long as I lived; that the thing was now gone so far, that
if I could not comply with his desire, we would both be ruined. Then
he told the whole story between Robin, as he called him, and his mother
and sisters and himself, as it is above. 'And now, dear child,' says
he, 'consider what it will be to marry a gentleman of a good family, in
good circumstances, and with the consent of the whole house, and to
enjoy all that he world can give you; and what, on the other hand, to
be sunk into the dark circumstances of a woman that has lost her
reputation; and that though I shall be a private friend to you while I
live, yet as I shall be suspected always, so you will be afraid to see
me, and I shall be afraid to own you.'

He gave me no time to reply, but went on with me thus: 'What has
happened between us, child, so long as we both agree to do so, may be
buried and forgotten. I shall always be your sincere friend, without
any inclination to nearer intimacy, when you become my sister; and we
shall have all the honest part of conversation without any reproaches
between us of having done amiss. I beg of you to consider it, and to
not stand in the way of your own safety and prosperity; and to satisfy
you that I am sincere,' added he, 'I here offer you #500 in money, to
make you some amends for the freedoms I have taken with you, which we
shall look upon as some of the follies of our lives, which 'tis hoped
we may repent of.'

He spoke this in so much more moving terms th