“He seemed thunderstruck at this proposal, being, I suppose, destitute of any excuse: but I was too impatient to wait for an answer, and cried out with much eagerness, Sure you cannot hesitate a moment upon this matter--‘Hesitate! madam!’ replied he--‘what you ask is impossible. Is this a time for me to mention a thing of this kind to your father?’--My eyes were now opened all at once--I fell into a rage little short of madness. Tell not me, I cried, of impossibilities, nor times, nor of my father---my honour, my reputation, my all are at stake.--I will have no excuse, no delay--make me your wife this instant, or I will proclaim you over the face of the whole earth for the greatest of villains. He answered, with a kind of sneer, ‘What will you proclaim, madam?--whose honour will you injure?’ My tongue faltered when I offered to reply, and I fell into a violent agony, which ended in a fit; nor do I remember anything more that past till I found myself in the arms of my poor affrighted father. “O, Mr. Booth, what was then my situation! I tremble even now from the reflection.--I must stop a moment. I can go no farther.” Booth attempted all in his power to soothe her; and she soon recovered her powers, and proceeded in her story. Chapter ix _In which Miss Matthews concludes her relation_. Before I had recovered my senses I had sufficiently betrayed myself to the best of men, who, instead of upbraiding me, or exerting any anger, endeavoured to comfort me all he could with assurances that all should yet be well. This goodness of his affected me with inexpressible sensations; I prostrated myself before him, embraced and kissed his knees, and almost dissolved in tears, and a degree of tenderness hardly to be conceived---But I am running into too minute descriptions. “Hebbers, seeing me in a fit, had left me, and sent one of the servants to take care of me. He then ran away like a thief from the house, without taking his leave of my father, or once thanking him for all his civilities. He did not stop at his quarters, but made directly to London, apprehensive, I believe, either of my father or brother’s resentment; for I am convinced he is a coward. Indeed his fear of my brother was utterly groundless; for I believe he would rather have thanked any man who had destroyed me; and I am sure I am not in the least behindhand with him in good wishes. “All his inveteracy to me had, however, no effect on my father, at least at that time; for, though the good man took sufficient occasions to reprimand me for my past offence, he could not be brought to abandon me. A treaty of marriage was now set on foot, in which my father himself offered me to Hebbers, with a fortune superior to that which had been given with my sister; nor could all my brother’s remonstrances against it, as an act of the highest injustice, avail.