ith me, and in short, proposes fairly and honourably to marry me,
and that before he made any other offer to me at all.

I was now confounded, and driven to such an extremity as the like was
never known; at least not to me. I resisted the proposal with
obstinacy; and now I began to arm myself with arguments. I laid before
him the inequality of the match; the treatment I should meet with in
the family; the ingratitude it would be to his good father and mother,
who had taken me into their house upon such generous principles, and
when I was in such a low condition; and, in short, I said everything to
dissuade him from his design that I could imagine, except telling him
the truth, which would indeed have put an end to it all, but that I
durst not think of mentioning.

But here happened a circumstance that I did not expect indeed, which
put me to my shifts; for this young gentleman, as he was plain and
honest, so he pretended to nothing with me but what was so too; and,
knowing his own innocence, he was not so careful to make his having a
kindness for Mrs. Betty a secret I the house, as his brother was. And
though he did not let them know that he had talked to me about it, yet
he said enough to let his sisters perceive he loved me, and his mother
saw it too, which, though they took no notice of it to me, yet they did
to him, an immediately I found their carriage to me altered, more than
ever before.

I saw the cloud, though I did not foresee the storm. It was easy, I
say, to see that their carriage to me was altered, and that it grew
worse and worse every day; till at last I got information among the
servants that I should, in a very little while, be desired to remove.

I was not alarmed at the news, having a full satisfaction that I should
be otherwise provided for; and especially considering that I had reason
every day to expect I should be with child, and that then I should be
obliged to remove without any pretences for it.

After some time the younger gentleman took an opportunity to tell me
that the kindness he had for me had got vent in the family. He did not
charge me with it, he said, for he know well enough which way it came
out. He told me his plain way of talking had been the occasion of it,
for that he did not make his respect for me so much a secret as he
might have done, and the reason was, that he was at a point, that if I
would consent to have him, he would tell them all openly that he loved
me, a