and that she would marry me, I'd have her tomorrow morning fasting, and say, 'To have and to hold,' instead of eating my breakfast.”

66

"Well," says the mother, "then there's one son lost;" and she said it in a

one greatly concerned at it.

very mournful tone, as

"I hope not, madam,”

says Robin; "no man is lost when a good wife has found him." 66 Why, but, child," says the old lady, "she is a beggar." "Why, then, madam, she has the more need of charity," says Robin; "I'll take her off the hands of the parish, and she and I'll beg together." "It's bad jesting with such things," says the mother. "I don't jest, madam,” says Robin ; "we'll come and beg your pardon, madam, and your blessing, madam, and my father's." "This is all out of the way, son," says the mother. "If you are in earnest you are undone." "I am afraid not," says he, "for I am really afraid she won't have me. After all my sister's huffing, I believe I shall never be able to persuade her to it."

"That's a fine tale, indeed. She is not so far gone neither. Mrs. Betty is no fool," says the youngest sister. "Do you think she has learned to say No, any more than other people?" "No, Mrs. Mirth-wit," says Robin, "Mrs. Betty's no fool, but Mrs. Betty may be engaged some other way, and what then?" 66 Nay," says the eldest sister, "we can say nothing to that. Who must it be to, then?

you.'

She is never out of the doors; it must be between "I have nothing to say to that," says "I have been examined enough; there's my brother. If it must be between us, go to work with him."

Robin.

This stung the elder brother to the quick, and he concluded that Robin had discovered something. However, he kept himself from appearing disturbed. "Prithee," says he, "don't go to sham your stories off upon me; I tell I deal in no such ware; I have nothing to say to no Mrs. Bettys in the parish; and with that he rose up and brushed off. "No," says the eldest sister, "I dare answer for my brother; he knows the world better."

you

Thus the discourse ended; but it left the eldest brother quite confounded. He concluded his brother had made a full discovery, and he began to doubt whether I had been concerned in it or not; but with all his management, he could not bring it about to get at me. At last, he was so perplexed that he was quite desperate, and resolved he would see me whatever came of it. In order to this, he contrived it so, that one day after dinner, watching his eldest sister, till he could see her go upstairs, he runs after her. "Hark ye, sister," says he, "where is this sick woman? May not a body see her?" "Yes," says the sister, "I believe you may; but let me go in first a little, and I'll tell you." So she ran up to

the door, and gave me notice and presently called to him again. "Brother," says she, "you may come in if you please." So in he came, just in the same kind of rant. 66 Well," says he at the door, as he came in, "where's this sick body that's in love? How do ye do, Mrs. Betty?" I would have got up out of my chair, but was so weak I could not for a good while; and he saw it, and his sister too; and she said, "Come, do not strive to stand up; my brother desires no ceremony, especially now you are so weak." "No, no, Mrs. Betty, pray sit still," says he, and so sits himself down in a chair over against me, and appeared as if he was mighty

merry.

He talked a deal of rambling stuff to his sister and to me; sometimes of one thing, sometimes another, on purpose to amuse her, and every now and then would turn it upon the old story. "Poor Mrs. Betty," says he, "it is a sad thing to be in love; why, it has reduced you sadly." At last I spoke a little. "I am glad to see you so merry, sir,” says I: "but I think the doctor might have found something better to do than to make his game of his patients. If I had been ill of no other distemper, I know the proverb too well to have let him come to "What proverb?" says he. "What

me."

66

Where love is the case,

The doctor's an ass.'

Is not that it, Mrs Betty?" I smiled, and said nothing. "Nay," says he, "I think the effect has proved it to be love; for it seems the doctor has done you little service; you mend very slowly, they say. I doubt there's somewhat in it, Mrs Betty; I doubt you are sick of the incurables." I smiled, and said, "No, indeed, sir, that's none of my distemper."

We had a deal of such discourse, and sometimes others that signified as little. By-and-by he asked me to sing them a song, at which I smiled, and said my singing days were over. At last he asked me if he should play upon his flute to me; his sister said, she believed my head could not bear it. I bowed, and said, "Pray, madam, do not hinder it; I love the flute very much." Then his sister said, "Well, do, then, brother." With that he pulled out the key of his closet. "Dear sister," says he, "I am very lazy; do step and fetch my flute; it lies in such a drawer," naming a place where he was sure it was not, that she might be a little while a-looking for it.

As soon as she was gone, he related the whole story to me of the discourse his brother had about me, and his concern about it, which was the reason of his contriving this visit. I assured him I had never opened my mouth either to his brother or to anybody else. I told him the dreadful exigence I was in; that my love to him, and his offering to have me forget that affection, and remove it to another,

had thrown me down; and that I had a thousand times wished I might die rather than recover, and to have the same circumstances to struggle with as I had before. I added that I foresaw that as soon as I was well I must quit the family, and that as for marrying his brother, I abhorred the thoughts of it after what had been my case with him, and that he might depend upon it I would never see his brother again upon that subject; that if he would break all his vows, and oaths, and engagements with me, be that between his conscience and himself; but he should never be able to say that I, whom he had persuaded to call myself his wife, and who had given him the liberty to use me as a wife, was not as faithful to him as a wife ought to be, whatever he might be to me.

He was going to reply, and had said that he was sorry I could not be persuaded, and was a-going to say more, but he heard his sister a-coming, and so did I; and yet I forced out these few words as a reply, that I could never be persuaded to love one brother and marry the other. He shook his head, and said, “Then I am ruined," meaning himself; and that moment his sister entered the room, and told him

she could not find the flute. "Well," says he merrily," this laziness won't do;" so he gets up, and goes himself to look for it, but comes back without it too; not but that he could have found it, but he