“In brief, Madam, when you went down into Kent, he read to me some part of your account to Lady Davers, of your informant and information; your apprehensions; your prudence; your affection for him; the reason of your melancholy; and, to all appearance, reason enough you had, especially from the letter of Thomasine Fuller, which was one of T.’s vile forgeries:  for though we had often, for argument’s sake, talked of polygamy (he arguing for it, I against it), yet had not Mr. B. dared, nor was he inclined, I verily believe, to propose any such thing to me:  no, Madam, I was not so much abandoned to a sense of honour, as to give reason for any one, but my impertinent and foolish uncle, to impute such a folly to me; and he had so behaved to me, that I cared not what he thought.

“Then, what he read to me, here and there, as he pleased, gave me reason to admire you for your generous opinion of one you had so much seeming cause to be afraid of:  he told me his apprehensions, from your uncommon manner, that your mind was in some degree affected, and your strange proposal of parting with a husband every one knows you so dearly love:  and we agreed to forbear seeing each other, and all manner of correspondence, except by letter, for one month, till some of my affairs were settled, which had been in great disorder, and were in his kind management then; and I had not one relation, whom I cared to trouble with them, because of their treatment of me on Mr. B.’s account.  And this, I told him, should not be neither, but through your hands, and with your consent.

“And thus, Madam,” said her ladyship, “have I told you the naked truth of the whole affair.  I have seen Mr. B. very seldom since:  and when I have, it has been either at a horse-race, in the open field, or at some public diversion, by accident, where only distant civilities have passed between us.

“I respect him greatly; you must allow me to say that.  Except in the article of permitting me to believe, for some time, that he was a single gentleman, a fault he cannot be excused for, and which made me heartily quarrel with him, when I first knew it, he has behaved to me with so much generosity and honour, that I could have wished I had been of his sex, since he had a lady so much more deserving than myself; and then, had he had the same esteem for me, there never would have been a more perfect friendship.  I am now going,” continued she, “to embark for France, and shall pass a year or two in Italy; and then I shall, I hope, return as solid, as grave, as circumspect, though not so wise, as Mrs. B.”

Thus the Countess concluded her narrative:  I said, I was greatly obliged to her for the honour of this visit, and the kind and considerate occasion of it:  but that Mr. B. had made me entirely happy in every particular, and had done her ladyship the justice she so well deserved, having taken upon himself the blame of passing as a single man at his first acquaintance with her.