ans that might be taken to oblige her to accept Mr
Morgan's proposal.

Little did she guess what those means would be. She expected to be
attacked alternately with all the violence of passion, the affected
softness of dissimulation, and every art that cunning could devise, to
force Sir Charles to concur in her persecution. These indeed were
employed as soon as Mr Morgan made his proposals; but her ladyship had
too many resources in her fertile brain to persevere long in a course
she found unavailing. The farmer where Miss Mancel lodged had a son, who
was in treaty with Lady Melvyn for a farm, which at the end of the year
would become vacant. This person she thought fit for her purpose, as
Miss Melvyn's going so frequently to Miss Mancel might give some colour
to her invention. She therefore took care to be found by Sir Charles
drowned in tears; he pressed to know the occasion of her grief, but she
resisted his importunity in such a manner as could not fail to increase
it, still she declared, that she loved him to that excess she could not
communicate a secret which she knew must afflict him, even though the
suppression and inward preyings of her sorrow should prove fatal to her
life.

Sir Charles now on his knees intreated her to acquaint him with the
misfortune she endeavoured to conceal, assuring her, that nothing could
give him so much concern as seeing her in that condition. She told him
she was sensible, that as his wife it was her duty to obey him (a duty
newly discovered, or at least newly performed by her ladyship); but she
feared she had not strength left to give it utterance. The endeavour
threw her into a hysteric fit, which was succeeded by so many others
that Sir Charles was almost frantic with his fears for so tender a wife,
who was thus reduced to the last agonies by her affectionate
apprehensions of giving him pain.

After rubbing her hands and feet till they were sore, suffocating her
with burnt feathers, and half poisoning her with medicines, Sir Charles
and her servants so far brought her to life that after sending her
attendants out of the room, she had just power to tell him she had
discovered an intrigue between his daughter and Simon the young farmer,
and then immediately sunk into another fit, which however did not last
so long; for as she had removed the heavy burden off her mind, she soon
began to recover.

Sir Charles was very much shocked at what Lady Melvyn told him, but
could not doubt