Cl. Be not displeased with me, Captain Tomlinson. I have told you that
I am not of a suspicious temper. Excuse me for the sake of my sincerity.
There is not, I will be bold to say, a sincerer heart in the world than
her's before you.
She took out her handkerchief, and put it to her eyes.
I was going, at that instant, after her example, to vouch for the honesty
of my heart; but my conscience Mennelled upon me; and would not suffer
the meditated vow to pass my lips.--A devilish thing, thought I, for a
man to be so little himself, when he has most occasion for himself!
The villain Tomlinson looked at me with a rueful face, as if he begged
leave to cry for company. It might have been as well, if he had cried.
A feeling heart, or the tokens of it given by a sensible eye, are very
reputable things, when kept in countenance by the occasion.
And here let me fairly own to thee, that twenty times in this trying
conversation I said to myself, that could I have thought that I should
have had all this trouble, and incurred all this guilt, I would have been
honest at first. But why, Jack, is this dear creature so lovely, yet so
invincible?--Ever heardst thou before that the sweets of May blossomed in
December?
Capt. Be pleased--be pleased, Madam--if you have any doubts of my
honour--
A whining varlet! He should have been quite angry--For what gave I him
the nod positive? He should have stalked again to the window, as for his
whip and hat.
Cl. I am only making such observations as my youth, my inexperience,
and my present unhappy circumstances, suggest to me--a worthy heart
(such, I hope, as Captain Tomlinson's) need not fear an examination--
need not fear being looked into--whatever doubts that man, who has been
the cause of my errors, and, as my severe father imprecated, the punisher
of the errors he has caused, might have had of me, or of my honour, I
would have forgiven him for them, if he had fairly proposed them to me:
for some doubts perhaps such a man might have of the future conduct of a
creature whom he could induce to correspond with him against parental
prohibition, and against the lights which her own judgment threw in upon
her: and if he had propounded them to me like a man and a gentleman, I
would have been glad of the opportunity given me to clear my intentions,
and to have shown myself entitled to his good opinion--and I hope you,
Sir--