s he, 'the case is plain enough upon me, it explains
itself; she won't have me, she says; is not that plain enough? I think
'tis plain, and pretty rough too.' 'Well, but,' says the mother, 'you
talk of conditions that you cannot grant; what does she want--a
settlement? Her jointure ought to be according to her portion; but
what fortune does she bring you?' 'Nay, as to fortune,' says Robin,
'she is rich enough; I am satisfied in that point; but 'tis I that am
not able to come up to her terms, and she is positive she will not have
me without.'

Here the sisters put in. 'Madam,' says the second sister, ''tis
impossible to be serious with him; he will never give a direct answer
to anything; you had better let him alone, and talk no more of it to
him; you know how to dispose of her out of his way if you thought there
was anything in it.' Robin was a little warmed with his sister's
rudeness, but he was even with her, and yet with good manners too.
'There are two sorts of people, madam,' says he, turning to his mother,
'that there is no contending with; that is, a wise body and a fool;
'tis a little hard I should engage with both of them together.'

The younger sister then put in. 'We must be fools indeed,' says she,
'in my brother's opinion, that he should think we can believe he has
seriously asked Mrs. Betty to marry him, and that she has refused him.'

'Answer, and answer not, say Solomon,' replied her brother. 'When your
brother had said to your mother that he had asked her no less than five
times, and that it was so, that she positively denied him, methinks a
younger sister need not question the truth of it when her mother did
not.' 'My mother, you see, did not understand it,' says the second
sister. 'There's some difference,' says Robin, 'between desiring me to
explain it, and telling me she did not believe it.'

'Well, but, son,' says the old lady, 'if you are disposed to let us
into the mystery of it, what were these hard conditions?' 'Yes, madam,'
says Robin, 'I had done it before now, if the teasers here had not
worried my by way of interruption. The conditions are, that I bring my
father and you to consent to it, and without that she protests she will
never see me more upon that head; and to these conditions, as I said, I
suppose I shall never be able to grant. I hope my warm sisters will be
answered now, and blush a little; if not, I have no more to say till I
hear further.'

This answer was surpri