d ink,
and then told me he could not wait the tedious writing on the glass,
but, pulling out a piece of paper, he began and wrote again--

'Be mine, with all your poverty.'

I took his pen, and followed him immediately, thus--

'Yet secretly you hope I lie.'

He told me that was unkind, because it was not just, and that I put him
upon contradicting me, which did not consist with good manners, any
more than with his affection; and therefore, since I had insensibly
drawn him into this poetical scribble, he begged I would not oblige him
to break it off; so he writes again--

'Let love alone be our debate.'

I wrote again--

'She loves enough that does not hate.'

This he took for a favour, and so laid down the cudgels, that is to
say, the pen; I say, he took if for a favour, and a mighty one it was,
if he had known all. However, he took it as I meant it, that is, to
let him think I was inclined to go on with him, as indeed I had all the
reason in the world to do, for he was the best-humoured, merry sort of
a fellow that I ever met with, and I often reflected on myself how
doubly criminal it was to deceive such a man; but that necessity, which
pressed me to a settlement suitable to my condition, was my authority
for it; and certainly his affection to me, and the goodness of his
temper, however they might argue against using him ill, yet they
strongly argued to me that he would better take the disappointment than
some fiery-tempered wretch, who might have nothing to recommend him but
those passions which would serve only to make a woman miserable all her
days.

Besides, though I jested with him (as he supposed it) so often about my
poverty, yet, when he found it to be true, he had foreclosed all manner
of objection, seeing, whether he was in jest or in earnest, he had
declared he took me without any regard to my portion, and, whether I
was in jest or in earnest, I had declared myself to be very poor; so
that, in a word, I had him fast both ways; and though he might say
afterwards he was cheated, yet he could never say that I had cheated
him.

He pursued me close after this, and as I saw there was no need to fear
losing him, I played the indifferent part with him longer than prudence
might otherwise have dictated to me. But I considered how much this
caution and indifference would give me the advantage over him, when I
should come to be under the necessity of owning my own circumstances to