But you have a journey to make back to Wenbourne-Hill, according to
your present intentions.
Do you imagine, madam, I cannot fast for a day?
Oh yes! I doubt it not; for a week, Frank, to effect any great, any
laudable purpose. But I must be plain with you. It is ungenerous of you
to wish to engross all virtue and sensibility. Beside, you have duties
to perform to yourself, which are as pressing as any you owe to
society, because they are to fit you for the social duties. [Hearken to
the angel, Oliver!] It is as much my duty, at present, to afford you
the means which you want, as it was yours to visit the wounded
highwayman, or aid the distressed Peggy. You ought to suffer me to
perform my duties, both for my sake and your own. You ought not to
neglect, while you are in London, to seize on every opportunity which
can tend to enlarge your faculties. You have no common part to act;
and, that you may act it well, you should study the beings with whom
you are to associate. You must not suffer any false feelings to unfit
you for the high offices for the execution of which men like you are
formed. [Didst thou ever hear such honeyed flattery, Oliver?] Something
more--You must accompany us to France.
Madam!--Impossible.
Hear me, Frank. The journey will be of infinite service to you. A mind
like yours cannot visit a kingdom where the manners of the people are
so distinct as those of the French must be from the English, without
receiving great benefit. Your father is rich.
That he denies, madam.
To you; and you and I know why. If your delicacy should object to a
gift, I am sure it cannot with propriety to a loan. Going with us, your
expences will in fact be only casual. I can supply you with such money
as you want, which you may hereafter repay me, when I may perhaps be
glad that I have such a debtor.
My father's property, madam, is of his own acquiring; I have no legal
claim upon it; and it would be dishonest in me to spend that, upon
speculation, which perhaps never may be mine.
Yes; to spend it in unworthy purposes would be dishonest. But I again
recur to your duties. However, since you are so tenacious on the
subject, I will become a usurer to pacify your feelings, and you shall
pay for risk. Fifty pounds, unless you meet with more Peggies, I dare
say will bear you free. [It is twenty pounds more, thou knowest, than I
asked of my father.] You shall give me eighty whenever you have a
thousand pounds of your own.