I looked round me with unaffected surprize—'Good God!—did I suppose, in this family, it was necessary to be upon my guard against malicious constructions?'
'Pray,'—interrupted Sarah, pertly—'would you not have expressed some surprize, had I shewed Mr Montague similar attentions?'
I looked at her, I believe, a little too contemptuously.—'Whatever sentiments might have been excited in my mind by the attentions of Miss Morton to Mr Montague, surprize, assuredly, would not have been among them.'
She coloured, and Montague's passions began to rise. I stopped him at the beginning of an impertinent harangue, by observing—
'That I did not think myself accountable to him for my conduct;—before I should be solicitous respecting his opinions, he must give me better reasons, than he had hitherto done, to respect his judgment.'
Ann wept, and prattled something, to which nobody thought it worth while to attend.
'Well, Sir,' continued I, turning to Mr Morton, 'be pleased to give me, in detail, what you have to alledge, that I may be enabled to justify myself.'
'Will you allow me to ask you a question?'
'Most certainly.'
'Has Mr Francis engaged you to correspond with him?'