I am all attention, Captain Tomlinson.
And so I doubt not was my beloved.
Capt. 'You must know, Sir, that I have not been many months in Mr. John Harlowe's neighbourhood. I removed from Northamptonshire, partly for the sake of better managing one of two executorship, which I could not avoid engaging in, (the affairs of which frequently call me to town, and are part of my present business;) and partly for the sake of occupying a neglected farm, which has lately fallen into my hands. But though an acquaintance of no longer standing, and that commencing on the bowling- green, [uncle John is a great bowler, Belford,] (upon my decision of a point to every one's satisfaction, which was appealed to me by all the gentlemen, and which might have been attended with bad consequences,) no two brothers have a more cordial esteem for each other. You know, Mr. Lovelace, that there is a consent, as I may call it, in some minds, which will unite them stronger together in a few hours, than years can do with others, whom yet we see not with disgust.'
Lovel. Very true, Captain.
Capt. 'It was on the foot of this avowed friendship on both sides, that on Monday the 15th, as I very well remember, Mr. Harlowe invited himself home with me. And when there, he acquainted me with the whole of the unhappy affair that had made them all so uneasy. Till then I knew it only by report; for, intimate as we were, I forbore to speak of what was so near his heart, till he began first. And then he told me, that he had had an application made to him, two or three days before, by a gentleman whom he named,* to induce him not only to be reconciled himself to his niece, but to forward for her a general reconciliation.
* See Vol. IV. Letters XXIII and XXIX.
'A like application, he told me, had been made to his sister Harlowe, by a good woman, whom every body respected; who had intimated, that his niece, if encouraged, would again put herself into the protection of her friends, and leave you: but if not, that she must unavoidably be your's.'
I hope, Mr. Lovelace, I make no mischief.—You look concerned—you sigh, Sir.
Proceed, Captain Tomlinson. Pray proceed.—And I sighed still more profoundly.
Capt. 'They all thought it extremely particular, that a lady should decline marriage with a man she had so lately gone away with.'