Booth declared he was much more surprised at her being able so well to preserve her temper in recounting her story.
“O sir,” answered she, “I am at length reconciled to my fate; and I can now die with pleasure, since I die revenged. I am not one of those mean wretches who can sit down and lament their misfortunes. If I ever shed tears, they are the tears of indignation.—But I will proceed.
“It was my fate now to solicit marriage; and I failed not to do it in the most earnest manner. He answered me at first with procrastinations, declaring, from time to time, he would mention it to my father; and still excusing himself for not doing it. At last he thought on an expedient to obtain a longer reprieve. This was by pretending that he should, in a very few weeks, be preferred to the command of a troop; and then, he said, he could with some confidence propose the match.
“In this delay I was persuaded to acquiesce, and was indeed pretty easy, for I had not yet the least mistrust of his honour; but what words can paint my sensations, when one morning he came into my room, with all the marks of dejection in his countenance, and, throwing an open letter on the table, said, ‘There is news, madam, in that letter which I am unable to tell you; nor can it give you more concern than it hath given me.’
“This letter was from his captain, to acquaint him that the rout, as they call it, was arrived, and that they were to march within two days. And this, I am since convinced, was what he expected, instead of the preferment which had been made the pretence of delaying our marriage.
“The shock which I felt at reading this was inexpressible, occasioned indeed principally by the departure of a villain whom I loved. However, I soon acquired sufficient presence of mind to remember the main point; and I now insisted peremptorily on his making me immediately his wife, whatever might be the consequence.
“He seemed thunderstruck at this proposal, being, I suppose, destitute of any excuse: but I was too impatient to wait for an answer, and cried out with much eagerness, Sure you cannot hesitate a moment upon this matter—‘Hesitate! madam!’ replied he—‘what you ask is impossible. Is this a time for me to mention a thing of this kind to your father?’—My eyes were now opened all at once—I fell into a rage little short of madness. Tell not me, I cried, of impossibilities, nor times, nor of my father—-my honour, my reputation, my all are at stake.—I will have no excuse, no delay—make me your wife this instant, or I will proclaim you over the face of the whole earth for the greatest of villains. He answered, with a kind of sneer, ‘What will you proclaim, madam?—whose honour will you injure?’ My tongue faltered when I offered to reply, and I fell into a violent agony, which ended in a fit; nor do I remember anything more that past till I found myself in the arms of my poor affrighted father.
“O, Mr. Booth, what was then my situation! I tremble even now from the reflection.—I must stop a moment. I can go no farther.” Booth attempted all in his power to soothe her; and she soon recovered her powers, and proceeded in her story.