heepish: and here your visitor is the boldest man in
England.

The righteous, Lady Beauchamp, said Sir Harry, with an aspect but
half-conceding, is bold as a lion.

And must I be compelled thus, and by such a man, to forgive you, Sir
Harry?--Indeed you were very unkind.

And you, Lady Beauchamp, were very cruel.

I did not think, sir, when I laid my fortune at your feet--

O, Lady Beauchamp! You said cutting things! Very cutting things.

And did not you, Sir Harry, say, it should be so?--So very peremptorily!

Not, madam, till you, as peremptorily--

A little recrimination, thought I, there must be, to keep each in
countenance on their past folly.

Ah, Sir Charles!--You may rejoice that you are not married, said Sir
Harry.

Dear Sir Harry, said I, we must bear with ladies. They are meek good
creatures--They--

Meek! Sir Charles, repeated Sir Harry, with a half-angry smile, and
shrugging, as if his shoulder had been hurt with his wife's meekness--
say, meek!

Now, Sir Charles Grandison, said my lady, with an air of threatening--

I was desirous either of turning the lady's displeasure into a jest, or
of diverting it from the first object, in order to make her play with it,
till she had lost it.

Women are of gentle natures, pursued I; and, being accustomed to be
humoured, opposition sits not easy upon them. Are they not kind to us,
Sir Harry, when they allow of our superiority, by expecting us to bear
with their pretty perversenesses?

O, Sir Charles Grandison! said my lady; both her hands lifted up.

Let us be contented, proceeded I, with such their kind acknowledgments,
and in pity to them, and in compliment to ourselves, bear with their
foibles.--See, madam, I ever was an advocate for the ladies.

Sir Charles, I have no patience with you--

What can a poor woman do, continued I, when opposed? She can only be a
little violent in words, and, when she has said as much as she chooses to
say, be perhaps a little sullen. For my part, were I so happy as to call
a woman mine, and she happened to be in the wrong, I would endeavour to
be in the right, and trust to her good sense to recover her temper:
arguments only beget arguments.--Those reconciliations are the most
durable, in which the lady makes the advances.

What doctrine is this, Sir Charles! You are not the man I took you for.
--I believe, in my conscience, that you are not near so good a man, as
the world reports you.

What, madam, because I