said so, I had a severe return to have made upon him; as possibly he
might see by my looks.

***

In this way are we now: a sort of calm, as I said, succeeding a storm.
What may happen next, whether a storm or a calm, with such a spirit as I
have to deal with, who can tell?

But, be that as it will, I think, my dear, I am not meanly off: and that
is a great point with me; and which I know you will be glad to hear: if
it were only, that I can see this man without losing any of that dignity
[What other word can I use, speaking of myself, that betokens decency,
and not arrogance?] which is so necessary to enable me to look up, or
rather with the mind's eye, I may say, to look down upon a man of this
man's cast.

Although circumstance have so offered, that I could not take your advice
as to the manner of dealing with him; yet you gave me so much courage by
it, as has enabled me to conduct things to this issue; as well as
determined me against leaving him: which, before, I was thinking to do,
at all adventures. Whether, when it came to the point, I should have
done so, or not, I cannot say, because it would have depended upon his
behaviour at the time.

But let his behaviour be what it will, I am afraid, (with you,) that
should any thing offer at last to oblige me to leave him, I shall not
mend my situation in the world's eye; but the contrary. And yet I will
not be treated by him with indignity while I have any power to help
myself.

You, my dear, have accused me of having modesty'd away, as you phrase it,
several opportunities of being--Being what, my dear?--Why, the wife of a
libertine: and what a libertine and his wife are my cousin Morden's
letter tells us.--Let me here, once for all, endeavour to account for the
motives of behavior to this man, and for the principles I have proceeded
upon, as they appear to me upon a close self-examination.

Be pleased to allow me to think that my motives on this occasion rise not
altogether from maidenly niceness; nor yet from the apprehension of what
my present tormenter, and future husband, may think of a precipitate
compliance, on such a disagreeable behaviour as his: but they arise
principally from what offers to my own heart; respecting, as I may say,
its own rectitude, its own judgment of the fit and the unfit; as I would,
without study, answer for myself to myself, in the first place; to him,
and to the world, in the second only. Principles that are in my mind;