This office was performed; but before I called him from the field I
exchanged a few words with the milkmaid, who sat on a bench, in all the
primness of expectation, and decked with the most gaudy plumage. I rated
her imaginary lover for his tardiness, and vowed eternal hatred to them
both for not making me a bride's attendant. She listened to me with an
air in which embarrassment was mingled sometimes with exultation and
sometimes with malice. I left her at length, and returned to the house
not till a late hour. As soon as I entered, my father presented Betty to
me as his wife, and desired she might receive that treatment from me
which was due to a mother.

It was not till after repeated and solemn declarations from both of them
that I was prevailed upon to credit this event. Its effect upon my
feelings may be easily conceived. I knew the woman to be rude, ignorant,
and licentious. Had I suspected this event, I might have fortified my
father's weakness and enabled him to shun the gulf to which he was
tending; but my presumption had been careless of the danger. To think
that such a one should take the place of my revered mother was
intolerable.

To treat her in any way not squaring with her real merits; to hinder
anger and scorn from rising at the sight of her in her new condition,
was not in my power. To be degraded to the rank of her servant, to
become the sport of her malice and her artifices, was not to be endured.
I had no independent provision; but I was the only child of my father,
and had reasonably hoped to succeed to his patrimony. On this hope I had
built a thousand agreeable visions. I had meditated innumerable projects
which the possession of this estate would enable me to execute. I had no
wish beyond the trade of agriculture, and beyond the opulence which a