She then, with her usual frankness, told him what had passed. "And," said she, with a smile, "you are partly to blame; for how could I help comparing your behavior to me with his? You came to my side when I was in trouble, and showed me respect when I expected scorn from all the world. A friend in need is a friend indeed."
"Reward me, reward me!" said Sir George, gaily; "you know the way."
"Nay, but I am too much your friend," said Mercy.
"Be less my friend, then, and more my darling."
He pressed her, he urged her, he stuck to her, he pestered her.
She snubbed, and evaded, and parried, and liked him all the better for his pestering her.
At last, one day, she said, "If Mrs. Gaunt thinks it will be for your happiness, I will—in six months' time: but you shall not marry in haste to repent at leisure. And I must have time to learn two things—whether you can be constant to a simple woman like me, and whether I can love again as tenderly as you deserve to be loved."
All his endeavors to shake this determination were vain. Mercy Vint had a terrible deal of quiet resolution.
He retired to Cumberland, and in a long letter, asked Mrs. Gaunt's advice. She replied characteristically. She began very soberly to say that she should be the last to advise a marriage between persons of different conditions in life. "But then," said she, "this Mercy is altogether an exception. If a flower grows on a dunghill, 'tis still a flower, and not a part of the dunghill. She has the essence of gentility, and indeed her manners are better bred than most of our ladies. There is too much affectation abroad, and that is your true vulgarity. Tack 'my lady' on to 'Mercy Vint,' and that dignified and quiet simplicity of hers will carry her with credit through every court in Europe. Then think of her virtues—(here the writer began to lose her temper)—where can you hope to find such another? she is a moral genius, and acts well, no matter under what temptation, as surely as Claude and Raphael paint well. Why, sir, what do you seek in a wife? Wealth? title? family? But you possess them already; you want something in addition that will make you happy. Well, take that angelic goodness into your house, and you will find, by your own absolute happiness, how ill your neighbors have wived. For my part I see but one objection: the child. Well, if you are man enough to take the mother, I am woman enough to take the babe. In one word, he who has the sense to fall in love with such an angel, and has not the sense to marry it, if he can, is a fool."
"Postscript—My poor friend, to what end think you I sent you down in the coach with her?"