I came home with this last booty to my governess, and really when I
told her the story, it so affected her that she was hardly able to
forbear tears, to know how such a gentleman ran a daily risk of being
undone every time a glass of wine got into his head.
But as to the purchase I got, and how entirely I stripped him, she told
me it pleased her wonderfully. 'Nay child,' says she, 'the usage may,
for aught I know, do more to reform him than all the sermons that ever
he will hear in his life.' And if the remainder of the story be true,
so it did.
I found the next day she was wonderful inquisitive about this
gentleman; the description I had given her of him, his dress, his
person, his face, everything concurred to make her think of a gentleman
whose character she knew, and family too. She mused a while, and I
going still on with the particulars, she starts up; says she, 'I'll lay
#100 I know the gentleman.' 'I am sorry you do,' says I, 'for I would not have him exposed on any
account in the world; he has had injury enough already by me, and I
would not be instrumental to do him any more.' 'No, no,' says she, 'I
will do him no injury, I assure you, but you may let me satisfy my
curiosity a little, for if it is he, I warrant you I find it out.' I
was a little startled at that, and told her, with an apparent concern
in my face, that by the same rule he might find me out, and then I was
undone. She returned warmly, 'Why, do you think I will betray you,
child? No, no,' says she, 'not for all he is worth in the world. I
have kept your counsel in worse things than these; sure you may trust
me in this.' So I said no more at that time.
She laid her scheme another way, and without acquainting me of it, but
she was resolved to find it out if possible. So she goes to a certain
friend of hers who was acquainted in the family that she guessed at,
and told her friend she had some extraordinary business with such a
gentleman (who, by the way, was no less than a baronet, and of a very
good family), and that she knew not how to come at him without somebody
to introduce her. Her friend promised her very readily to do it, and
accordingly goes to the house to see if the gentleman was in town.