MR. BELFORD, TO ROBERT LOVELACE, ESQ.
THURSDAY NIGHT.
I was forced to take back my twenty guineas. How the women managed it I
can't tell, (I suppose they too readily found a purchaser for the rich
suit;) but she mistrusted, that I was the advancer of the money; and
would not let the clothes go. But Mrs. Lovick has actually sold, for
fifteen guineas, some rich lace worth three times the sum; out of which
she repaid her the money she borrowed for fees to the doctor, in an
illness occasioned by the barbarity of the most savage of men. Thou
knowest his name!
The Doctor called on her in the morning it seems, and had a short debate
with her about fees. She insisted that he should take one every time he
came, write or not write; mistrusting that he only gave verbal directions
to Mrs. Lovick, or the nurse, to avoid taking any.
He said that it would be impossible for him, had he not been a physician,
to forbear inquiries after the health and welfare of so excellent a
person. He had not the thought of paying her a compliment in declining
the offered fee: but he knew her case could not so suddenly vary as to
demand his daily visits. She must permit him, therefore, to inquire of
the women below after her health; and he must not think of coming up, if
he were to be pecuniarily rewarded for the satisfaction he was so
desirous to give himself.
It ended in a compromise for a fee each other time; which she unwillingly
submitted to; telling him, that though she was at present desolate and in
disgrace, yet her circumstances were, of right, high; and no expenses
could rise so as to be scrupled, whether she lived or died. But she
submitted, she added, to the compromise, in hopes to see him as often as
he had opportunity; for she really looked upon him, and Mr. Goddard, from
their kind and tender treatment of her, with a regard next to filial.
I hope thou wilt make thyself acquainted with this worthy Doctor when
thou comest to town; and give him thy thanks, for putting her into
conceit with the sex that thou hast given her so much reason to execrate.
Farewell.