and, in a word, I held him in this suspense near three weeks.

During this time I had a strange elevation upon my mind; and the prince,
or the spirit of him, had such a possession of me that I spent most of
this time in the realising all the great things of a life with the
prince, to my mind pleasing my fancy with the grandeur I was supposing
myself to enjoy, and with wickedly studying in what manner to put off
this gentleman and be rid of him for ever.

I cannot but say that sometimes the baseness of the action stuck hard
with me; the honour and sincerity with which he had always treated me,
and, above all, the fidelity he had showed me at Paris, and that I owed
my life to him--I say, all these stared in my face, and I frequently
argued with myself upon the obligation I was under to him, and how base
would it be now too, after so many obligations and engagements, to cast
him off.

But the title of highness, and of a princess, and all those fine things,
as they came in, weighed down all this; and the sense of gratitude
vanished as if it had been a shadow.

At other times I considered the wealth I was mistress of; that I was
able to live like a princess, though not a princess; and that my
merchant (for he had told me all the affair of his misfortunes) was far
from being poor, or even mean; that together we were able to make up an
estate of between three and four thousand pounds a year, which was in
itself equal to some princes abroad. But though this was true, yet the
name of princess, and the flutter of it--in a word, the pride--weighed
them down; and all these arguings generally ended to the disadvantage of
my merchant; so that, in short, I resolved to drop him, and give him a
final answer at his next coming; namely, that something had happened in
my affairs which had caused me to alter my measures unexpectedly, and,
in a word, to desire him to trouble himself no farther.

I think, verily, this rude treatment of him was for some time the effect
of a violent fermentation in my blood; for the very motion which the
steady contemplation of my fancied greatness had put my spirits into had
thrown me into a kind of fever, and I scarce knew what I did.

I have wondered since that it did not make me mad; nor do I now think it
strange to hear of those who have been quite lunatic with their pride,
that fancied themselves queens and empresses, and have made their
attendants serve them upon the knee, given visitors their hand