mpt my
vanity, but, as I soon found, was not the way to increase my interest
in the family, for the sister and the younger brother fell grievously
out about it; and as he said some very disobliging things to her upon
my account, so I could easily see that she resented them by her future
conduct to me, which indeed was very unjust to me, for I had never had
the least thought of what she suspected as to her younger brother;
indeed, the elder brother, in his distant, remote way, had said a great
many things as in jest, which I had the folly to believe were in
earnest, or to flatter myself with the hopes of what I ought to have
supposed he never intended, and perhaps never thought of.

It happened one day that he came running upstairs, towards the room
where his sisters used to sit and work, as he often used to do; and
calling to them before he came in, as was his way too, I, being there
alone, stepped to the door, and said, 'Sir, the ladies are not here,
they are walked down the garden.' As I stepped forward to say this,
towards the door, he was just got to the door, and clasping me in his
arms, as if it had been by chance, 'Oh, Mrs. Betty,' says he, 'are you
here? That's better still; I want to speak with you more than I do
with them'; and then, having me in his arms, he kissed me three or four
times.

I struggled to get away, and yet did it but faintly neither, and he
held me fast, and still kissed me, till he was almost out of breath,
and then, sitting down, says, 'Dear Betty, I am in love with you.'

His words, I must confess, fired my blood; all my spirits flew about my
heart and put me into disorder enough, which he might easily have seen
in my face. He repeated it afterwards several times, that he was in
love with me, and my heart spoke as plain as a voice, that I liked it;
nay, whenever he said, 'I am in love with you,' my blushes plainly
replied, 'Would you were, sir.'

However, nothing else passed at that time; it was but a surprise, and
when he was gone I soon recovered myself again. He had stayed longer
with me, but he happened to look out at the window and see his sisters
coming up the garden, so he took his leave, kissed me again, told me he
was very serious, and I should hear more of him very quickly, and away
he went, leaving me infinitely pleased, though surprised; and had there
not been one misfortune in it, I had been in the right, but the mistake
lay here, that Mrs. Betty was in earnest and the g