o die than to prostitute her virtue and honour, let
the temptation be what it will.

But to return to my story; he walked about the garden, which was,
indeed, all in disorder, and overrun with weeds, because I had not been
able to hire a gardener to do anything to it, no, not so much as to dig
up ground enough to sow a few turnips and carrots for family use. After
he had viewed it, he came in, and sent Amy to fetch a poor man, a
gardener, that used to help our man-servant, and carried him into the
garden, and ordered him to do several things in it, to put it into a
little order; and this took him up near an hour.

By this time I had dressed me as well as I could; for though I had good
linen left still, yet I had but a poor head-dress, and no knots, but old
fragments; no necklace, no earrings; all those things were gone long ago
for mere bread.

However, I was tight and clean, and in better plight than he had seen me
in a great while, and he looked extremely pleased to see me so; for, he
said, I looked so disconsolate and so afflicted before, that it grieved
him to see me; and he bade me pluck up a good heart, for he hoped to put
me in a condition to live in the world, and be beholden to nobody.

I told him that was impossible, for I must be beholden to him for it,
for all the friends I had in the world would not or could not do so much
for me as that he spoke of "Well, widow," says he (so he called me, and
so indeed I was in the worst sense that desolate word could be used
in), "if you are beholden to me, you shall be beholden to nobody else."

By this time dinner was ready, and Amy came in to lay the cloth, and
indeed it was happy there was none to dine but he and I, for I had but
six plates left in the house, and but two dishes; however, he knew how
things were, and bade me make no scruple about bringing out what I had.
He hoped to see me in a better plight. He did not come, he said, to be
entertained, but to entertain me, and comfort and encourage me. Thus he
went on, speaking so cheerfully to me, and such cheerful things, that it
was a cordial to my very soul to hear him speak.

Well, we went to dinner. I'm sure I had not ate a good meal hardly in a
twelvemonth, at least not of such a joint of meat as the loin of veal
was. I ate, indeed, very heartily, and so did he, and he made me drink
three or four glasses of wine; so that, in short, my spirits were lifted
up to a degree I had not been used to, and I was not