The History of Miss Betsy Thoughtless

by Eliza Fowler Haywood

Miss Betsy only answering with her tears—'I speak not this to upbraid you,' resumed he; 'and would be far from adding to the affliction you are in; on the contrary, I would have you be chearful, and rejoice more in the escape you have had, than bewail the danger you have passed through: but then, my dear sister, I would wish you also to put yourself into a condition which may defend you from attempts of this vile nature.'

He was going on with something farther, when the elder Mr. Thoughtless came in. 'I have been detained,' said that gentleman, 'longer than I expected; my friend is going to have his picture drawn; and, knowing I have been in Italy, would needs have my judgment upon the painter's skill.' 'I suppose, then,' said Mr. Francis, 'your eyes have been feasted with the resemblance of a great number of beauties, either real or fictitious.'—'No, faith,' replied the other; 'I believe none of the latter: the man seems to be too much an artist in his profession to stand in any need of having recourse to that stale strategem of inviting customers by exhibiting shadows, which have no substances but in his own brain; and, I must do him the justice to say, that I never saw life imitated to more perfection.'

'Then you saw some faces there you were acquainted with,' said the younger Mr. Thoughtless. 'Two or three,' answered the elder; 'but one, which more particularly struck me, as I had seen the original but twice—but once, indeed, to take any notice of: it was of your friend, the gentleman we waited on this morning.'

'What, Trueworth!' demanded Mr. Francis. 'The same,' resumed the other: 'never was there a more perfect likeness—he is drawn in miniature; I believe, by the size of the piece, intended to be worn at a lady's watch; but I looked on it through my magnifier, and thought I saw his very self before me.'

He said much more in praise of the excellence of this artist; as, indeed, he was very full of it, having a desire his favourite mistress's picture should be drawn, and was transported to have found a person who, he thought, could do it so much justice.

Though Miss Betsy sat all this time in a pensive posture, and seemed not to take any notice of this discourse, yet no part of it was lost upon her. 'You extol this painter so much, brother,' said she, 'that if I thought my picture worth drawing, I would sit to him myself. Pray,' continued she, 'where does he live, and what is his name?' Mr. Thoughtless having satisfied her curiosity in these points, no more was said on the occasion; and the brothers immediately entered into a conversation upon the business which had brought them thither.

The elder of them remonstrated to her, in the strongest terms he was able, the perpetual dangers to which, through the baseness of this world, and her own inadvertency, she was liable every day to be exposed. 'This last ugly incident,' said he, 'I hope may be hushed up; Mr. Trueworth, I dare say, is too generous to make any mention of it; and those concerned in it will be secret for their own sakes: but you may not always meet the same prosperous chance. It behoves us, therefore, who must share in your disgrace, as well as have a concern in your happiness, to insist on your putting yourself into a different mode of life: Mr. Munden makes very fair proposals; he has given me leave to examine the rent-roll of his estate, which accordingly I have ordered a lawyer to do. He will settle an hundred and fifty pounds per annum on you for pin-money, and jointure you in four hundred; and I think your fortune does not entitle you to a better offer.'

'Brother, I have had better,' replied Miss Betsy, with a sigh. 'But you rejected it!' cried Mr. Francis, with some warmth; 'and you are not to expect a second Trueworth to fall to your share.'—'Let us talk no more of what is past,' said the elder Mr. Thoughtless; 'but endeavour to persuade our sister to accept of that which at present is most for her advantage.'

Both these gentlemen, in their different turns, made use of every argument that could be brought on the occasion, to prevail on Miss Betsy to give them some assurance, that as now there was no better prospect for her, she would trifle no longer with the pretensions of Mr. Munden, but resolve to marry him, in case the condition of his affairs was proved, upon enquiry, to be such as he had represented to them.

She made, for a great while, very little reply to all this; her head was now, indeed, very full of something else; she sat in a kind of reverie, and had a perfect absence of mind during this latter part of their discourse: she heard, but heard without attention, and without considering the weight of any thing they urged; yet, at last, merely to get rid of their importunities and presence, that she might be alone to indulge her own meditations, she said as they said, and promised to do whatever they required of her.