'Well, then,' said he, without observing her distress, 'won't it be more honest to run in debt with an old bachelor, who has nobody but himself to take care of, than with a set of poor people who, perhaps, have got their houses full of children?'
The word honest, and the impossibility of disproving a charge of injuring those by whom she had been served, so powerfully shocked her feelings in arraigning her principles, that she could frame no answer.
Conceiving her silence to be assent, he returned to the chimney-piece, and, taking the little packet of bills, prepared to put it into his pocket-book; but, hastily, then, rising, she entreated him to restore it without delay.
Her manner was so earnest that he did not dare contest her will, though he looked nearly as angry as he was sorry. 'I meant,' he said, 'to have given you the greatest pleasure in the world; that was what I meant. I thought your debts made you so unhappy, that you would love me all your life for getting them off your hands. I loved a person so myself, who paid for some tops for me, when I was a boy, that I had bought for some of my playmates; without recollecting that I had no money to pay for them. However, I beg your pardon for my blunder, if you like your debts better.'
He now bowed to her, with an air of concern, and, wishing her health and happiness, retreated; but left her door wide open; and she heard him say to the milliners, 'My dears, I've made a great mistake: I wanted to set that pretty lady's heart at rest, by paying her bills; but she says she had rather owe them; though she did not mention her reason. So I hope the poor people are in no great hurry. However, whether they be or not, don't let them torment her for the money, for she says she has none. So 'twould only be plaguing her for nothing. And I should be sorry for her, for she looks as if she were very smart, besides being so pretty.'
CHAPTER XXIX
Ellis, for some minutes, hardly knew whether to be most provoked or diverted by this singular visit. But all that approached to amusement was short lived. The most distant apprehension that her probity could be arraigned, was shocking; and she determined to dedicate the evening to calculating all that she had either to pay or to receive; and sooner to leave herself destitute of every means of support, but such as should arise from day to day, than hazard incurring any suspicion injurious to her integrity.
These estimates, which were easily drawn up, afforded her, at once, a view of her ability to satisfy her creditors, and of the helpless poverty in which she must then remain herself: her courage, nevertheless, rose higher, from the conviction that her honour would be cleared.