ace where he was sure
it was not, that she might be a little while a-looking for it.

As soon as she was gone, he related the whole story to me of the
discourse his brother had about me, and of his pushing it at him, and
his concern about it, which was the reason of his contriving this visit
to me. I assured him I had never opened my mouth either to his brother
or to anybody else. I told him the dreadful exigence I was in; that my
love to him, and his offering to have me forget that affection and
remove it to another, had thrown me down; and that I had a thousand
times wished I might die rather than recover, and to have the same
circumstances to struggle with as I had before, and that his
backwardness to life had been the great reason of the slowness of my
recovering. I added that I foresaw that as soon as I was well, I must
quit the family, and that as for marrying his brother, I abhorred the
thoughts of it after what had been my case with him, and that he might
depend upon it I would never see his brother again upon that subject;
that if he would break all his vows and oaths and engagements with me,
be that between his conscience and his honour and himself; but he
should never be able to say that I, whom he had persuaded to call
myself his wife, and who had given him the liberty to use me as a wife,
was not as faithful to him as a wife ought to be, whatever he might be
to me.

He was going to reply, and had said that he was sorry I could not be
persuaded, and was a-going to say more, but he heard his sister
a-coming, and so did I; and yet I forced out these few words as a
reply, that I could never be persuaded to love one brother and marry
another. He shook his head and said, 'Then I am ruined,' meaning
himself; and that moment his sister entered the room and told him she
could not find the flute. 'Well,' says he merrily, 'this laziness won't
do'; so he gets up and goes himself to go to look for it, but comes
back without it too; not but that he could have found it, but because
his mind was a little disturbed, and he had no mind to play; and,
besides, the errand he sent his sister on was answered another way; for
he only wanted an opportunity to speak to me, which he gained, though
not much to his satisfaction.

I had, however, a great deal of satisfaction in having spoken my mind
to him with freedom, and with such an honest plainness, as I have
related; and though it did not at all work the way I desired, that