honour, you can or ought to resent; but there is something extremely
nice in the chastity of a truly virtuous woman."

"And hath my wife really complained of anything of that kind in the
colonel?"

"Look ye, young gentleman," cries the doctor; "I will have no
quarrelling or challenging; I find I have made some mistake, and
therefore I insist upon it by all the rights of friendship, that you
give me your word of honour you will not quarrel with the colonel on
this account."

"I do, with all my heart," said Booth; "for, if I did not know your
character, I should absolutely think you was jesting with me. I do not
think you have mistaken my wife, but I am sure she hath mistaken the
colonel, and hath misconstrued some over-strained point of gallantry,
something of the Quixote kind, into a design against her chastity; but
I have that opinion of the colonel, that I hope you will not be
offended when I declare I know not which of you two I should be the
sooner jealous of."

"I would by no means have you jealous of any one," cries the doctor;
"for I think my child's virtue may be firmly relied on; but I am
convinced she would not have said what she did to me without a cause;
nor should I, without such a conviction, have written that letter to
the colonel, as I own to you I did. However, nothing I say hath yet
past which, even in the opinion of false honour, you are at liberty to
resent! but as to declining any great intimacy, if you will take my
advice, I think that would be prudent."