material thing more
she told Mrs. Bargrave, that old Mr. Bretton allowed Mrs. Veal ten
pounds a year, which was a secret, and unknown to Mrs. Bargrave till
Mrs. Veal told her.

Mrs. Bargrave never varies in her story, which puzzles those who
doubt of the truth, or are unwilling to believe it. A servant in the
neighbor's yard adjoining to Mrs. Bargrave's house heard her talking
to somebody an hour of the time Mrs. Veal was with her. Mrs. Bargrave
went out to her next neighbor's the very moment she parted with Mrs.
Veal, and told her what ravishing conversation she had had with an old
friend, and told the whole of it. Drelincourt's _Book of Death_ is,
since this happened, bought up strangely. And it is to be observed
that, notwithstanding all the trouble and fatigue Mrs. Bargrave has
undergone upon this account, she never took the value of a farthing,
nor suffered her daughter to take anything of anybody, and therefore
can have no interest in telling the story.

But Mr. Veal does what he can to stifle the matter, and said he would
see Mrs. Bargrave; but yet it is certain matter of fact that he has
been at Captain Watson's since the death of his sister, and yet never
went near Mrs. Bargrave; and some of his friends report her to be a
liar, and that she knew of Mr. Bretton's ten pounds a year. But the
person who pretends to say so has the reputation to be a notorious
liar among persons whom I know to be of undoubted credit. Now, Mr.
Veal is more of a gentleman than to say she lies, but says a bad
husband has crazed her; but she needs only present herself, and it
will effectually confute that pretence. Mr. Veal says he asked his
sister on her death-bed whether she had a mind to dispose of anything.
And she said no. Now the things which Mrs. Veal's apparition would
have disposed of were so trifling, and nothing of justice aimed at in
the disposal, that the design of it appears to me to be only in order
to make Mrs. Bargrave satisfy the world of the reality thereof as to
what she had seen and heard, and to secure her reputation among the
reasonable and understanding part of mankind. And then, again, Mr.
Veal owns that there was a purse of gold; but it was not found in
her cabinet, but in a comb-box. This looks improbable; for that Mrs.
Watson owned that Mrs. Veal was so very careful of the key of her
cabinet that she would trust nobody with it; and if so, no doubt she
would not trust her gold out of it. And Mrs. Veal's often