If I keep but my
courage, I shall be pleased. I know the worst, and that will help
me; for he is too noble to use me roughly, when he sees I mean not to
provoke him by upbraidings, any more than I will act, in this case,
beneath the character I ought to assume as his wife.
Mr. B. came up, with great impatience in his looks. I met him at the
chamber door, with a very sedate countenance, and my heart was
high with my purpose, and supported me better than I could have
expected.--Yet, on recollection, now I impute to myself something
of that kind of magnanimity, that was wont to inspire the innocent
sufferers of old, for a still worthier cause than mine; though their
motives could hardly be more pure, in that one hope I had, to be an
humble means of saving the man I love and honour, from errors that
might be fatal to his soul.
I took his hand with boldness:--"Dear Sir," leading him to my closet,
"here is the bar at which I am to take my trial," pointing to the
backs of three chairs, which I had placed in a joined row, leaving
just room to go by on each side. "You must give me, Sir, all my own
way; this is the first, and perhaps the last time, that I shall desire
it.--Nay, dear Sir," turning my face from him, "look not upon me with
an eye of tenderness: if you do I may lose my purposes, important to
me as they are; and however fantastic my behaviour may seem to you,
I want not to move your passions (for the good impressions made upon
them may be too easily dissipated by the winds of _sense_,) but
_your reason_; and if that can be done, I am safe, and shall fear no
relapse.
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