And palliating her cruel usage,
and beginning, I suppose, to think herself she had carried it further
than she could answer it to her brother, she wanted to lay the fault upon
me. Own, said she, you have been very saucy; and beg my pardon, and beg
Jackey's pardon, and I will try to pity you. For you are a sweet girl,
after all; if you had but held out, and been honest.
'Tis injurious to me, madam, said I, to imagine I am not honest!--Said
she, Have you not been a-bed with my brother? tell me that. Your
ladyship, replied I, asks your questions in a strange way, and in strange
words.
O! your delicacy is wounded, I suppose, by my plain questions!--This
niceness will soon leave you, wench: It will, indeed. But answer me
directly. Then your ladyship's next question, said I, will be, Am I
married? And you won't bear my answer to that--and will beat me again.
I han't beat you yet; have I, Beck? said she. So you want to make out a
story, do you?--But, indeed, I can't bear thou shouldst so much as think
thou art my sister. I know the whole trick of it; and so, 'tis my
opinion, dost thou. It is only thy little cunning, that it might look
like a cloak to thy yielding, and get better terms from him. Pr'ythee,
pr'ythee, wench, thou seest I know the world a little;--almost as much at
thirty-two, as thou dost at sixteen.
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