Eliza Fowler Haywood

“ To add to the fury and distraction of her mind, continuing still in her chamber, and happening to be pretty near the window, she saw Miss Betsy, Miss Mabel, and Mr. Trueworth, pass by in a landau, that gentleman having, it seems, invited these ladies on a party of pleasure: 'You shall not long enjoy this satisfaction,' cried she to herself, 'if it be in human wit to separate you!' But at this sight, the turbulent passions of her soul becoming more outrageous, 'O may the machine that conveys you be thrown from off its wheels!' pursued she. ”

“ Trueworth, 'that in what I have done, I but obeyed the dictates of my honour.'—'Honour!' cried the other, fiercely, and laying his hand on his sword, 'What is it you mean, Sir? Did honour oppose your marriage with my sister?'
'No menaces!' said Mr. Trueworth, with a gravity which was pretty near disdain: 'you know me incapable of fear; I have fought for your sister, but will never fight against her. I injure not her reputation; on the contrary, I would defend it, if unjustly attacked, even at the hazard of my life: but as to love or marriage, these are things now out of the question ”

“ Miss Betsy was all this time enjoying the little fraud she had been guilty of: the idea how Mr. Trueworth would be surprized at finding his picture had been taken away, and the various conjectures that would naturally rise in his mind upon so odd an accident, gave her more real pleasure than others feel on the accomplishment of the most material event.
She was, indeed, of a humour the most perfectly happy for herself that could be: chearful, gay—not apt to create imaginary ills, as too many do, and become wretched for misfortunes which have no existence but in their own fretful dispositions. ”

“ Trueworth, would have made any one think the former had much the preference in her esteem; till Mr. Chatfree, after having listened to her exclamations on this score, cried out on a sudden, 'Ah, Madam! what a mistake has the confusion I was involved in made me guilty of! Alas, I have deceived you, though without designing to do so! Mr. Staple lives, it is Mr. Trueworth who has fallen a sacrifice to his unsuccessful passion for you.' 'Trueworth dead!' cried Miss Betsy; 'O God! and does his murderer live to triumph in the fall of the best and most accomplished man on earth? ”

“ There are so many daily instances of the strictest caution not being always a sufficient security against the snares laid for our destruction, that I look on it as half a miracle, when a young woman, handsome, and exposed as you are, escapes unprejudiced, either in her virtue or reputation. Consider, my dear child, you who have no tender mother, whose precepts and example might keep you steady in the paths of prudence: no father, whose authority might awe the daring libertine from any injurious attack; and are but too much mistress of yourself. ”

“ Munden, spiritously, 'would your ladyship have me give up, to the expence of housekeeping, that slender pittance allowed for cloaths and pocket-money in my marriage articles?'
'No, my dear,' cried Lady Trusty; 'far be it from me to give you any such counsel: on the contrary, I am apprehensive that, if you should suffer yourself to be either menaced, or cajoled, out of even the smallest part of your rights, it is possible that a man of Mr. Munden's disposition might hereafter be tempted to encroach upon the whole, and leave you nothing you could call your own. ”

“ Sweet indeed are the reflections which flow from a consciousness of having done what virtue, and the duty owing to the character we bear in life, exact from us! but poor Miss Betsy was not to enjoy, for any long time, so happy a tranquillity; she was rouzed out of this serenity of mind by an adventure of a different kind from all she had ever yet experienced, and which, if she were not properly guarded against, it ought to be imputed rather to the unsuspecting goodness of her heart, than to her vanity, or that inadvertency which had occasioned her former mistakes. ”

“ Trueworth, since his desisting his courtship to her, had loved another; and also, that her rival in his affection was now no more. 'He need not,' said she to herself, 'be at the trouble of sitting a second time for his picture in compliment to her; nor can what I have done be a subject of disquiet to either of them.'
She then would take his picture out of the cabinet, where she had concealed it, and examine it attentively. 'Good God!' cried she, 'how uncertain is the heart of man! How little dependence ought we to place on all the professions of love they make us! ”

“ Trueworth went one morning to visit him at his house. He found him at home, but the hall so incumbered with trunks and boxes, that there was scarce a passage to the parlour-door. 'Welcome, my dear friend!' said Sir Bazil, who, having seen him from a window, ran down stairs to receive him: 'you find me in a strange disorder here; but I have got a couple of women out of the country; and that sex, I think, like a general officer, can never move without a waggon-load of trumpery at their tail.'—'What, married!' cried Mr. Trueworth. ”

“ I am amazed to think how any one of common-sense can be at so great an expence for rich cloaths, to go to a place where she must suffer as great pain in shewing them. Bless me! to stand, for two or three hours together, mute as a fish—upright as an arrow; and, when the scene is over, walk backward like a crab, curtseying at every step, though their legs are so tired, they are scarce able to go through the ceremony!'
'A masquerade, then?' resumed Mr. Trueworth, willing to try her farther. ”

“ Munden, with less love perhaps than any man who had addressed her, knew better how to suit himself to her humour: he could act over all the delicacies of the most tender passion, without being truly sensible of any of them; and though he wished, in reality, nothing so much as attaining the affections of Miss Betsy, yet wishing it without those timid inquietudes, those jealous doubts, those perplexing anxieties, which suspense inflicts on a more stolid mind, he was the more capable of behaving towards her in the way she liked. ”

“ Staple by her guardian; yet all the ideas she had of either of them, served only to excite in her the pleasing imagination, how, when they both came to address her, she should play the one against the other, and give herself a constant round of diversion, by their alternate contentment or disquiet. 'As the barometer,' said she to herself, 'is governed by the weather, so is the man in love governed by the woman he admires: he is a mere machine—acts nothing of himself—has no will or power of his own, but is lifted up or depressed, just as the charmer of his heart is in the humour. ”

“ If she has so little sense of honour or reputation, as the lightness of her behaviour makes some people too ready to imagine, her very pride is sufficient to secure her virtue: she would not, could not, condescend to the embraces of a man who thought so meanly of her as to attempt the gaining her on any other score than that of marriage! And yet,' pursued he, after a pause, 'who knows but that very pride, which seems to be her defence, may have contributed to her fall? She has vanity enough to imagine she may act with impunity what she would condemn in others. ”

“ The real esteem I have for all persons of honesty and probity, obliges me to give you this seasonable warning of the greatest misfortune that can possibly befal a careful and a tender parent, as I know you are: but, not to keep you in suspense; your son, Sir, your only, your darling son! that son whom you have educated with so much tenderness, and who is so deservedly dear to you, is on the verge of ruin; his unhappy acquaintance with Mr. Goodman's family has subjected him to the artifices of a young girl, whose little affairs are in the hands of that gentleman. ”

“ The accounts of those many and dreadful misfortunes which the ill conduct of Miss Forward had drawn upon her, made Miss Betsy extremely pensive. 'It is strange,' said she to herself, 'that a woman cannot indulge in the liberty of conversing freely with a man, without being persuaded by him to do every thing he would have her.' She thought, however, that some excuse might be made for Miss Forward, on the score of her being strictly debarred from all acquaintance with the other sex. 'People,' cried she, 'have naturally an inclination to do what they are most forbid. ”

“ I have been your rival, my dear Harriot; but when I found you were mine, wished you not to lose what I would have given the world, had I been the mistress of it, to have gained. The first moment I saw the too agreeable Mr. Trueworth, something within told me, he was my fate—that according as I appeared in his eyes, I must either be happy, or no more: it has proved the latter; death has seized upon my heart, but cannot drive my passion thence. ”

“ Miss Forward had a great deal of the coquette in her nature; she knew how to play at fast-and-loose with her lover; and, young as she was, took a pride in mingling pain with the pleasure she bestowed. Miss Betsy was a witness of all the airs the other gave herself on this occasion, and the artifices she made use of, in order to secure the continuance of his addresses: so that, thus early initiated into the mystery of courtship, it is not to be wondered at, that when she came to the practice, she was so little at a loss. ”

“ I am engaged with some gentleman at the house where you found me, and have given my promise to return in ten minutes.' These words, and the reserved tone in which he spoke them, stabbed her to the heart. 'Ungenerous man!' cried she, 'is it thus you repay the most tender and ardent passion that ever was!'—'You ladies,' said he, 'when once you give way to the soft impulse, are apt to devote yourselves too much to it; but men have a thousand other amusements, which all claim a share in the variegated scenes of life. ”

“ A fire which every windy passion blows;
With pride it mounts, and with revenge it glows.'
Miss Flora was not of a temper, either to bear the pangs of hopeless love in silent grief, or to give way too readily to despair. In spite of the indifference she found herself treated with by Mr. Trueworth, she was not without hope, that if she could by any means occasion a disunion between him and Miss Betsy, he would then be brought to cast his eyes on her, and return her flame with some degree of ardency. ”

“ Miss Betsy was now in as happy a disposition as any of her friends, or even Mr. Trueworth himself, could desire: she listened to the confirmations he was every day giving her of his passion, with the greatest affability, and much more seriousness and attention than she had been accustomed. The quarrel she had with Miss Flora making her willing to avoid her as much as possible, he was frequently alone with her whole hours together, and had all the opportunities he could wish of cultivating the esteem she made no scruple of confessing she had for him. ”

“ How terrible is the situation of a lover who endeavours all he can to reconcile his reason to his passion, yet to which side soever he bends his thoughts, finds in them things so diametrically opposite and incompatible, that either the one or the other must be totally renounced! Willing, therefore, to take the party which would best become his honour and reputation, Mr. Trueworth resolved to banish from his mind all the ideas of those amiable qualities he had admired in Miss Betsy, and remember only those which gave him occasion for disgust. ”

“ Munden, filled her not now with the least resentment; for though she deserved them not upon the score he made them, yet she was conscious that she did so for going to the house of Lord ——, after having the strongest reasons to believe he had dishonourable intentions upon her.
She blushed to remember, that she had given herself leave to be pleased at the thoughts of appearing amiable in the eyes of that great man. 'Good God!' cried she, 'what infatuation possessed me! Am I not married? Is not all I am the property of Mr. Munden? Is it not highly criminal in any one to offer to invade his right? ”