we would both be ruined. Then he told the whole story
between Robin, as he called him, and his mother and sisters
and himself, as it is above. 'And now, dear child,' says he,
'consider what it will be to marry a gentleman of a good family,
in good circumstances, and with the consent of the whole house,
and to enjoy all that he world can give you; and what, on the
other hand, to be sunk into the dark circumstances of a woman
that has lost her reputation; and that though I shall be a private
friend to you while I live, yet as I shall be suspected always,
so you will be afraid to see me, and I shall be afraid to own you.'

He gave me no time to reply, but went on with me thus: 'What
has happened between us, child, so long as we both agree to do
so, may be buried and forgotten. I shall always be your sincere
friend, without any inclination to nearer intimacy, when you
become my sister; and we shall have all the honest part of
conversation without any reproaches between us of having
done amiss. I beg of you to consider it, and to not stand in the
way of your own safety and prosperity; and to satisfy you that
I am sincere,' added he, 'I here offer you #500 in money, to
make you some amends for the freedoms I have taken with
you, which we shall look upon as some of the follies of our
lives, which 'tis hoped we may repent of.'

He spoke this in so much more moving terms than it is possible
for me to express, and with so much greater force of argument
than I can repeat, that I only recommend it to those who read
the story, to suppose, that as he held me above an hour and a
half in that discourse, so he answered all my objections, and
fortified his discourse with all the arguments that human wit