and was, to be sure, so naturalised now as that it
would be carrying me out of my native country, which he would not desire
by any means, however agreeable it might be to him.

I told him he was mistaken in me; that as I had told him so much of a
married state being a captivity, and the family being a house of
bondage, that when I married I expected to be but an upper servant; so,
if I did notwithstanding submit to it, I hoped he should see I knew how
to act the servant's part, and do everything to oblige my master; that
if I did not resolve to go with him wherever he desired to go, he might
depend I would never have him. "And did I not," said I, "offer myself to
go with you to the East Indies?"

All this while this was indeed but a copy of my countenance; for, as my
circumstances would not admit of my stay in London, at least not so as
to appear publicly, I resolved, if I took him, to live remote in the
country, or go out of England with him.

But in an evil hour, just now came Amy's letter, in the very middle of
all these discourses; and the fine things she had said about the prince
began to make strange work with me. The notion of being a princess, and
going over to live where all that had happened here would have been
quite sunk out of knowledge as well as out of memory (conscience
excepted), was mighty taking. The thoughts of being surrounded with
domestics, honoured with titles, be called her Highness, and live in all
the splendour of a court, and, which was still more, in the arms of a
man of such rank, and who, I knew, loved and valued me--all this, in a
word, dazzled my eyes, turned my head, and I was as truly crazed and
distracted for about a fortnight as most of the people in Bedlam, though
perhaps not quite so far gone.

When my gentleman came to me the next time I had no notion of him; I
wished I had never received him at all. In short, I resolved to have no
more to say to him, so I feigned myself indisposed; and though I did
come down to him and speak to him a little, yet I let him see that I was
so ill that I was (as we say) no company, and that it would be kind in
him to give me leave to quit him for that time.

The next morning he sent a footman to inquire how I did; and I let him
know I had a violent cold, and was very ill with it. Two days after he
came again, and I let him see me again, but feigned myself so hoarse
that I could not speak to be heard, and that it was painful to me but to
whisper;