Didactic fiction; Domestic fiction; England -- Fiction; Married women -- Fiction
"He is," answered the doctor, "where I will presently be with him. In
the mean time, do you pack up everything in order for your journey to-
morrow; for if you are wise, you will not trust your husband a day
longer in this town--therefore to packing."
Amelia promised she would, though indeed she wanted not any warning
for her journey on this account; for when she packed up herself in the
coach, she packed up her all. However, she did not think proper to
mention this to the doctor; for, as he was now in pretty good humour,
she did not care to venture again discomposing his temper.
The doctor then set out for Gray's-inn-lane, and, as soon as he was
gone, Amelia began to consider of her incapacity to take a journey in
her present situation without even a clean shift. At last she
resolved, as she was possessed of seven guineas and a half, to go to
her friend and redeem some of her own and her husband's linen out of
captivity; indeed just so much as would render it barely possible for
them to go out of town with any kind of decency. And this resolution
she immediately executed.
As soon as she had finished her business with the pawnbroker (if a man
who lends under thirty _per cent._ deserves that name), he said
to her, "Pray, madam, did you know that man who was here yesterday
when you brought the picture?" Amelia answered in the negative.
"Indeed, madam," said the broker, "he knows you, though he did not
recollect you while you was here, as your hood was drawn over your
face; but the moment you was gone he begged to look at the picture,
which I, thinking no harm, permitted. He had scarce looked upon it
when he cried out, 'By heaven and earth it is her picture!' He then
asked me if I knew you." "Indeed," says I, "I never saw the lady
before."
In this last particular, however, the pawnbroker a little savoured of
his profession, and made a small deviation from the truth, for, when
the man had asked him if he knew the lady, he answered she was some
poor undone woman who had pawned all her cloathes to him the day
before; and I suppose, says he, this picture is the last of her goods
and chattels. This hint we thought proper to give the reader, as it
may chance to be material.
Amelia answered coldly that she had taken so very little notice of the
man that she scarce remembered he was there.
"I assure you, madam," says the pawnbroker, "he hath taken very great
notice of you; for the man changed countenance upon what I said, and
presently after begged me to give him a dram. Oho! thinks I to myself,
are you thereabouts? I would not be so much in love with some folks as
some people are for more interest than I shall ever make of a thousand
pound."
Amelia blushed, and said, with some peevishness, "That she knew
nothing of the man, but supposed he was some impertinent fellow or
other."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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