Yes, Madam, [but, watching the turn of my countenance,] rather as what
you would be welcome to, than perhaps approve of.
I believe so too. To go to town upon an uncertainty, I own, is not
agreeable: but to be obliged to any persons of your acquaintance, when
I want to be thought independent of you; and to a person, especially, to
whom my friends are to direct to me, if they vouchsafe to take notice of
me at all, is an absurd thing to mention.
He did not mention it as what he imagined I would accept, but only to
confirm to me what he had said, that he himself knew of none fit for me.
Has not your family, Madam, some one tradesman they deal with, who has
conveniences of this kind? I would make it worth such a person's while
to keep his secret of your being at his house. Traders are dealers in
pins, said he, and will be more obliged by a penny customer, than by a
pound present, because it is in their way: yet will refuse neither, any
more than a lawyer or a man of office his fee.
My father's tradesmen, I said, would, no doubt, be the first employed to
find me out. So that that proposal was as wrong as the other. And who
is it that a creature so lately in favour with all her friends can apply
to, in such a situation as mine, but must be (at least) equally the
friends of her relations.
We had a good deal of discourse upon the same topic. But, at last, the
result was this--He wrote a letter to one Mr. Doleman, a married man,
of fortune and character, (I excepting to Mr. Belford,) desiring him
to provide decent apartments ready furnished [I had told him what they
should be] for a single woman; consisting of a bed-chamber; another for
a maidservant; with the use of a dining-room or parlour. This letter he
gave me to peruse; and then sealed it up, and dispatched it away in my
presence, by one of his own servants, who, having business in town, is
to bring back an answer.
I attend the issue of it; holding myself in readiness to set out for
London, unless you, my dear, advise the contrary.