t lodge there
that night.

He said he could not well stay that night, business requiring him in
London, but added, smiling, that he would come the next day and take a
night's lodging with me. I pressed him to stay that night, and told him
I should be glad a friend so valuable should be under the same roof with
me; and indeed I began at that time not only to be much obliged to him,
but to love him too, and that in a manner that I had not been acquainted
with myself.

Oh! let no woman slight the temptation that being generously delivered
from trouble is to any spirit furnished with gratitude and just
principles. This gentleman had freely and voluntarily delivered me from
misery, from poverty, and rags; he had made me what I was, and put me
into a way to be even more than I ever was, namely, to live happy and
pleased, and on his bounty I depended. What could I say to this
gentleman when he pressed me to yield to him, and argued the lawfulness
of it? But of that in its place.

I pressed him again to stay that night, and told him it was the first
completely happy night that I had ever had in the house in my life, and
I should be very sorry to have it be without his company, who was the
cause and foundation of it all; that we would be innocently merry, but
that it could never be without him; and, in short, I courted him so,
that he said he could not deny me, but he would take his horse and go
to London, do the business he had to do, which, it seems, was to pay a
foreign bill that was due that night, and would else be protested, and
that he would come back in three hours at farthest, and sup with me; but
bade me get nothing there, for since I was resolved to be merry, which
was what he desired above all things, he would send me something from
London. "And we will make it a wedding supper, my dear," says he; and
with that word took me in his arms, and kissed me so vehemently that I
made no question but he intended to do everything else that Amy had
talked of.

I started a little at the word wedding. "What do ye mean, to call it by
such a name?" says I; adding, "We will have a supper, but t'other is
impossible, as well on your side as mine." He laughed. "Well," says he,
"you shall call it what you will, but it may be the same thing, for I
shall satisfy you it is not so impossible as you make it."

"I don't understand you," said I. "Have not I a husband and you a wife?"

"Well, well," says he, "we will talk of that after s