“Mistress Jane, you are too little acquainted with the world for your own happiness, or rather, for your security,—may a friend say this without offending you?”
“A friend may say any thing to me, Master Juxon, that a damsel may not blush to hear.”
“I understand you—I must say no more—and yet I meant you well.”
“But good intentions do often tread upon the foot just where it is most tender.”
“Well, lady, enough: I will spare your maiden blushes; only remember, of our sex, that he doth always act most openly who is most loyal.”
“Loyal! Master Juxon, what mean you? Did you then so far forget yourself as to follow and trace out the gentleman whom you last evening stood watching as he parted from me?—I do not understand you.”
“Mistress Jane, you should have known me better;—so far from watching your interview with the strange gentleman with whom I saw you, it was to avoid intrusion that I waited in the adjoining close till you parted from him, and would have gone back again altogether, but for the great circuit and the business which I had in Warwick.”
“You saw us part, then?”
“Yes, to my wonder, and to my sorrow that my eyes had caught an action meant only for your own. Lady, forgive the word; but at lovers’ oaths forget not that Cupid laughs:—may Jane Lambert never be won by any suitor who does not openly woo her!”
“Amen to your kind wish, Master Juxon—so be it:—I know what you think, and am sorry, but I cannot help it;—however, you are not my father confessor, nor do I ever wish to have one.”