He did not mention it as what he imagined I would accept, but only to confirm to me what he had said, that he himself knew of none fit for me.
Has not your family, Madam, some one tradesman they deal with, who has conveniences of this kind? I would make it worth such a person's while to keep his secret of your being at his house. Traders are dealers in pins, said he, and will be more obliged by a penny customer, than by a pound present, because it is in their way: yet will refuse neither, any more than a lawyer or a man of office his fee.
My father's tradesmen, I said, would, no doubt, be the first employed to find me out. So that that proposal was as wrong as the other. And who is it that a creature so lately in favour with all her friends can apply to, in such a situation as mine, but must be (at least) equally the friends of her relations.
We had a good deal of discourse upon the same topic. But, at last, the result was this—He wrote a letter to one Mr. Doleman, a married man, of fortune and character, (I excepting to Mr. Belford,) desiring him to provide decent apartments ready furnished [I had told him what they should be] for a single woman; consisting of a bed-chamber; another for a maidservant; with the use of a dining-room or parlour. This letter he gave me to peruse; and then sealed it up, and dispatched it away in my presence, by one of his own servants, who, having business in town, is to bring back an answer.
I attend the issue of it; holding myself in readiness to set out for London, unless you, my dear, advise the contrary.
LETTER XXXV
MR. LOVELACE, TO JOHN BELFORD, ESQ. SAT., SUNDAY, MONDAY.
He gives, in several letters, the substance of what is
contained in the last seven of the Lady's.
He tells his friend, that calling at The Lawn, in his way to
M. Hall, (for he owns that he went not to Windsor,) he
found the letters from Lady Betty Lawrance, and his cousin
Montague, which Mrs. Greme was about sending to him by a
special messenger.
He gives the particulars, from Mrs. Greme's report, of what
passed between the Lady and her, as in Letter VI. and
makes such declarations to Mrs. Greme of his honour and
affection to the Lady, as put her upon writing the letter to
her sister Sorlings, the contents of which are in Letter
XXVIII.
He then accounts, as follows, for the serious humour he
found her in on his return:
Upon such good terms when we parted, I was surprised to find so solemn a brow upon my return, and her charming eyes red with weeping. But when I had understood she had received letters from Miss Howe, it was natural to imagine that that little devil had put her out of humour with me.