Therefore, dear Walter, you must send me instantly a hundred guineas. Yes really, if you want to quiet my conscience, you must send me a hundred guineas.
Nothing will quiet my conscience but matrimony.
I cannot marry without a hundred guineas.—Ergo, if you don't send me a hundred guineas, and I should die, and be ——, the sin will lay at your door, and you will die and be —— likewise.
As I have much consideration for you, my dear Walter, and as I know that people who have very weak heads, have sometimes also very weak nerves, I would advise you to lay down my letter, unless you are seated in some safe place, for, should your situation be dangerous, and should the surprise I am preparing for you rob you of apprehension, down you drop and leave me in utter despair—lest your executors should refuse me the hundred guineas.
Well—are you settled to your satisfaction?—Here it comes like a thunderbolt!
Miss Valmont is mine, and I am her's—your hundred guineas will buy a parson and a prayer book; and then the L.7000 a year is mine also.
You know, dear Walter, that resolved to obtain the heiress of Valmont castle, I left London to return to Monkton Hall, with a heart full of promise, and a head full of stratagem. Fortune, that dear blind inconstant goddess, who formerly was almost within my grasp, now dashes the projects of others to the ground, to give my wishes their triumph. Some Merlin, with more potent spells than mine, broke the enchanted castle, bore off the damsel, and, directed by fate and fortune, brought her on the road, to meet me, to the very spot where it was decreed his success should end, that mine might begin. And begun it has.
Last night, I slept at B——; and intended breakfasting with Sir Gilbert Monkton: this morning I ordered the driver to leave the high road, and cross the country, by which means I should save six miles of the journey. Griffiths had been unwell some days; and he now appeared so cold, and so much indisposed, I thought it prudent to give him a breakfast on the road. The postilion, by the luckiest of all chances, drove up to a pretty little white-washed inn, that I shall love dearly for six months to come.
The landlady, a curtsying civil woman, was mighty sorry she had not a better room to receive my honour in; but her best parlour, she said, was already taken up with a lady and gentleman, who had arrived at seven o'clock in the morning. And she showed me into a little place, which had two excellent properties, namely, perfect cleanliness, and a good fire.
By this good fire I had sat five or perhaps ten minutes, when Griffiths entered. 'My Lord! my Lord!' said he, and turned back to shut the door; 'I have seen the strangest sight, my Lord! I have seen a gentleman——' At that moment a tea-kettle was brought into the room; and Griffiths grew downright pettish with the damsel who bore the kettle, because she did not quit the room with sufficient speed.