Well, my dearest life, what say you to your uncle’s expedient?  Shall I write to the Captain, and acquaint him, that we have no objection to it?

She was silent for a few minutes.  At last, with a sigh, See, Mr. Lovelace, said she, what you have brought me to, by treading after you in such crooked paths!—­See what disgrace I have incurred!—­Indeed you have not acted like a wise man.

My beloved creature, do you not remember, how earnestly I besought the honour of your hand before we came to town?—­Had I been then favoured—­

Well, well, Sir; there has been much amiss somewhere; that’s all I will say at present.  And since what’s past cannot be recalled, my uncle must be obeyed, I think.

Charmingly dutiful!—­I had nothing then to do, that I might not be behind-hand with the worthy Captain and her uncle, but to press for the day.  This I fervently did.  But (as I might have expected) she repeated her former answer; to wit, That when the settlements were completed; when the license was actually obtained; it would be time enough to name the day:  and, O Mr. Lovelace, said she, turning from me with a grace inimitably tender, her handkerchief at her eyes, what a happiness, if my dear uncle could be prevailed upon to be personally a father, on this occasion, to the poor fatherless girl!

What’s the matter with me!—­Whence this dew-drop!—­A tear!—­As I hope to be saved, it is a tear, Jack!—­Very ready methinks!—­Only on reciting!—­But her lovely image was before me, in the very attitude she spoke the words—­and indeed at the time she spoke them, these lines of Shakespeare came into my head: 

      Thy heart is big.  Get thee apart and weep! 
      Passion, I see, is catching:—­For my eye,
      Seeing those beads of sorrow stand in thine,
      Begin to water—­

I withdrew, and wrote to the Captain to the following effect—­’I desired that he would be so good as to acquaint his dear friend that we entirely acquiesced with what he had proposed; and had already properly cautioned the gentlewomen of the house, and their servants, as well as our own:  and to tell him, That if he would in person give me the blessing of his dear niece’s hand, it would crown the wishes of both.  In this case, I consented, that his own day, as I presumed it would be a short one, should be ours:  that by this means the secret would be with fewer persons:  that I myself, as well as he, thought the ceremony could not be too privately performed; and this not only for the sake of the wise end he had proposed to answer by it, but because I would not have Lord M. think himself slighted; since that nobleman, as I had told him [the Captain] had once intended to be our nuptial-father; and actually made the offer; but that we had declined to accept of it, and that for no other reason than to avoid a public wedding; which his beloved niece would not come into, while she was in disgrace with her friends.  But that if he chose not to do us this honour, I wished that Captain Tomlinson might be the trusty person whom he would have be present on the happy occasion.’