I was perfectly disconcerted. I hemm'd, and was going to speak several times; but I knew not in what key. Who's modest now! thought I. Who's insolent now!—How a tyrant of a woman confounds a bashful man! She was acting Miss Howe, I thought; and I the spiritless Hickman.
At last, I will begin, thought I.
She a dish—I a dish.
Sip, her eyes her own, she; like a haughty and imperious sovereign, conscious of dignity, every look a favour.
Sip, like her vassal, I; lips and hands trembling, and not knowing that I sipp'd or tasted.
I was—I was—I sipp'd—(drawing in my breath and the liquor together, though I scalded my mouth with it) I was in hopes, Madam—
Dorcas came in just then.—Dorcas, said she, is a chair gone for?
Damn'd impertinence, thought I, thus to put me out in my speech! And I was forced to wait for the servant's answer to the insolent mistress's question.
William is gone for one, Madam.
This cost me a minute's silence before I could begin again. And then it was with my hopes, and my hopes, and my hopes, that I should have been early admitted to—