which you'll much oblige me by signing. I can repay you both sums together
by Saturday,--if you needs must have it so soon. The bearer waits."

In any state of my thoughts, there was little likelihood of my
complying with a request made in these terms. With my present feelings, it
was difficult to forbear returning an angry and reproachful answer. I sent
him back these lines:--

"I am thoroughly convinced that it is not in my power to afford you any
effectual aid in your present difficulties. It will be very easy to injure
myself. The request you make can have no other tendency. I must therefore
decline complying."

The facility with which I had yielded up my first resolutions probably
encouraged him to this second application, and I formed very solemn
resolutions not to be seduced a second time.

In a few minutes after despatching my answer, he appeared. I need not
repeat our conversation. He extorted from me, without much difficulty,
what I had heard through my mother, and--methinks I am ashamed to confess
it--by exchanging his boisterous airs for pathetic ones, by appealing to
my sisterly affection and calling me his angel and saviour, and especially
by solemnly affirming that Frazer's story was a calumny, I at length did
as he would have me: yet only for _three_ hundred; I would not go
beyond that sum.

The moment he left me, I perceived the weakness and folly of my conduct
in the strongest light, I renewed all my prudent determinations; yet,
strange to tell, within less than a week, the same scene of earnest
importunity on his side, and of foolish flexibility on mine, was