'Because,' said I, 'you can't expect I should visit you on the account
you talk of.' 'Well,' says he, 'you shall promise me to come again, however, and I
will not say any more of it till I have gotten the divorce, but I
desire you will prepare to be better conditioned when that's done, for
you shall be the woman, or I will not be divorced at all; why, I owe it
to your unlooked-for kindness, if it were to nothing else, but I have
other reasons too.' He could not have said anything in the world that pleased me better;
however, I knew that the way to secure him was to stand off while the
thing was so remote, as it appeared to be, and that it was time enough
to accept of it when he was able to perform it; so I said very
respectfully to him, it was time enough to consider of these things
when he was in a condition to talk of them; in the meantime, I told
him, I was going a great way from him, and he would find objects enough
to please him better. We broke off here for the present, and he made
me promise him to come again the next day, for his resolutions upon my
own business, which after some pressing I did; though had he seen
farther into me, I wanted no pressing on that account.
I came the next evening, accordingly, and brought my maid with me, to
let him see that I kept a maid, but I sent her away as soon as I was
gone in. He would have had me let the maid have stayed, but I would
not, but ordered her aloud to come for me again about nine o'clock.
But he forbade that, and told me he would see me safe home, which, by
the way, I was not very well please with, supposing he might do that to
know where I lived and inquire into my character and circumstances.
However, I ventured that, for all that the people there or thereabout
knew of me, was to my advantage; and all the character he had of me,
after he had inquired, was that I was a woman of fortune, and that I
was a very modest, sober body; which, whether true or not in the main,
yet you may see how necessary it is for all women who expect anything
in the world, to preserve the character of their virtue, even when
perhaps they may have sacrificed the thing itself.
I found, and was not a little please with it, that he had provided a
supper for me. I found also he lived very handsomely, and had a house
very handsomely furnished; all of which I was rejoiced at indeed, for I
looked upon it as all my own.