There is no question, sir, said Arabella, smiling, that if they did not come to defend us, they came to rob you: but it is hard to guess, which of us it was of whom they designed to deprive you; for it may very possibly be for my cousin's sake, as well as mine, that this enterprise was undertaken.
Pardon me, madam, said Mr. Glanville, who was willing to prevent his father from answering her absurdities; these men had no other design than to rob us of our money.
How! said Arabella: were these cavaliers, who appeared to be in so handsome a garb that I took them for persons of prime quality, were they robbers? I have been strangely mistaken, it seems. However, I apprehend there is no certainty that your suspicions are true; and it may still be as I say, that they either came to rescue or carry us away.
Mr. Glanville, to avoid a longer dispute, changed the discourse; having observed, with confusion, that Sir Charles, and his sister seemed to look upon his beloved cousin as one that was out of her senses.
[Chapter III.]
Which concludes with an authentic piece of history.
Arabella, during the rest of this journey, was so wholly taken up in contemplating upon the last adventure, that she mixed but little in the conversation. Upon their drawing near Bath, the situation of that city afforded her the means of making a comparison between the valley in which it was placed (with the amphitheatrical view of the hills around it) and the valley of Tempe.
It was in such a place as this, said she, pursuing her comparison, that the fair Andronice delivered the valiant Hortensius: and really I could wish our entrance into that city might be preceded by an act of equal humanity with that of that fair princess.