"Verily, he is a scheming man, who will swindle you out of the eight hundred pounds when you have secured it."
"Hugh Price agrees with them."
"Does he?" asked Mrs. Stevens.
"He does."
"I don't believe it."
Hugh Price was, in her estimation, the perfection of manhood. He was of the same church, a thorough royalist and a close friend of Sir William Berkeley the deposed governor.
"Dorothe, I said he recommended it. Pray do not doubt it."
The matter was settled next day when Hugh Price himself said to Mrs. Stevens that it was best for her husband to go. She secretly resolved that during her husband's absence she would enjoy herself.
"John," she said, "if you are going away to London to enjoy yourself, you must leave with me two or three hundred pounds."
John Stevens interrupted her with a sarcastic laugh.