Clarissa Harlowe Samuel Richardson (most important books to read TXT) 📖

and more apprehensive, were they generally attended by such smart servants, and their mouths permitted to be unlocked upon them as yours has been lately upon me.⁠—But, take away, Mrs. Betty.

Why, Miss, you have eat nothing at all⁠—I hope you are not displeased with your dinner for anything I have said.

No, Mrs. Betty, I am pretty well used to your freedoms now, you know.⁠—I am not displeased in the main, to observe, that, were the succession of modern fine ladies to be extinct, it might be supplied from those whom they place in the next rank to themselves, their chambermaids and confidants. Your young mistress has contributed a great deal to this quickness of yours. She always preferred your company to mine. As you pulled, she let go; and so, Mrs. Betty, you have gained by her conversation what I have lost.

Why, Miss, if you come to that, nobody says better things than Miss Harlowe. I could tell you one, if I pleased, upon my observing to her, that you lived of late upon the air, and had no stomach to anything; yet looked as charmingly as ever.

I dare say, it was a very good-natured one, Mrs. Betty! Do you then please that I shall hear it?

Only this, Miss, That your stomachfulness had swallowed up your stomach; and, That obstinacy was meat, drink, and clothes to you.

Ay, Mrs. Betty; and did she say this?⁠—I hope she laughed when she said it, as she does at all her good things, as she calls them. It was very smart, and very witty. I wish my mind were so much at ease, as to aim at being witty too. But if you admire such sententious sayings, I’ll help you to another; and that is, Encouragement and approbation make people show talents they were never suspected to have; and this will do both for mistress and maid. And another I’ll furnish you with, the contrary of the former, that will do only for me: That persecution and discouragement depress ingenuous minds, and blunt the edge of lively imaginations. And hence may my sister’s brilliancy and my stupidity be both accounted for. Ingenuous, you must know, Mrs. Betty, and ingenious, are two things; and I would not arrogate the latter to myself.

Lord, Miss, said the foolish girl, you know a great deal for your years.⁠—You are a very learned young lady!⁠—What pity⁠—

None of your pities, Mrs. Betty, I know what you’d say. But tell me, if you can, Is it resolved that I shall be carried to my uncle Antony’s on Thursday?

I was willing to reward myself for the patience she had made me exercise, by getting at what intelligence I could from her.

Why, Miss, seating herself at a little distance (excuse my sitting down) with the snuffbox tapped very smartly, the lid opened, and a pinch taken with a dainty finger and thumb, the other three fingers distendedly bent, and with a fine flourish⁠—I cannot but say, that it is my opinion, you will certainly go on Thursday; and this noless foless, as I have heard my young lady say in French.

Whether I am willing or not willing, you mean, I suppose, Mrs. Betty?

You have it, Miss.

Well but, Betty, I have no mind to be turned out of doors so suddenly. Do you think I could not be permitted to tarry one week longer?

How can I tell, Miss?

O Mrs. Betty, you can tell a great deal, if you please. But here I am forbid writing to anyone of my family; none of it now will come near me; nor will any of it permit me to see them: How shall I do to make known my request, to stay here a week or fortnight longer?

Why, Miss, I fancy, if you were to show a compliable temper, your friends would show a compliable one too. But would you expect favours, and grant none?

Smartly put, Betty! But who knows what may be the result of my being carried to my uncle Antony’s?

Who knows, Miss!⁠—Why anybody will guess what may be the result.

As how, Betty?

As how! repeated the pert wench, Why, Miss, you will stand in your own light, as you have hitherto done: and your parents, as such good parents ought, will be obeyed.

If, Mrs. Betty, I had not been used to your oughts, and to have my duty laid down to me by your oraculous wisdom I should be apt to stare at the liberty of your speech.

You seem angry, Miss. I hope I take no unbecoming liberty.

If thou really thinkest thou dost not, thy ignorance is more to be pitied, than thy pertness resented. I wish thou wouldst leave me to myself.

When young ladies fall out with their own duty, it is not much to be wondered at, that they are angry at anybody who do theirs.

That’s a very pretty saying, Mrs. Betty!⁠—I see plainly what thy duty is in thy notion, and am obliged to those who taught it thee.

Everybody takes notice, Miss, that you can say very cutting words in a cool manner, and yet not call names, as I have known some gentlefolks as well as others do when in a passion. But I wish you had permitted ’Squire Solmes to see you: he would have told you such stories of ’Squire Lovelace, as you would have turned your heart against him forever.

And know you any of the particulars of those sad stories?

Indeed I don’t; but you’ll hear all at your uncle Antony’s, I suppose; and a great deal more perhaps than you will like to hear.

Let me hear what I will, I am determined against Mr. Solmes, were it to cost me my life.

If you are, Miss, the Lord have mercy on you! For what with this letter of yours to ’Squire Solmes, whom they so much value, and what with their antipathy to ’Squire Lovelace, whom they hate, they will have no patience with you.

What will they do, Betty? They won’t kill me? What will they do?

Kill you! No!⁠—But you will not be suffered to stir from thence, till