Didactic fiction; Domestic fiction; England -- Fiction; Married women -- Fiction
Her behaviour, indeed, was such that the peer plainly perceived that
he should get no advantage by pursuing her any farther at present.
Instead, therefore, of attempting to follow her, he turned on his heel
and addressed his discourse to another lady, though he could not avoid
often casting his eyes towards Amelia as long as she remained in the
room.
Fortune, which seems to have been generally no great friend to Mr.
Booth, gave him no extraordinary marks of her favour at play. He lost
two full rubbers, which cost him five guineas; after which, Amelia,
who was uneasy at his lordship's presence, begged him in a whisper to
return home; with which request he directly complied.
Nothing, I think, remarkable happened to Booth, unless the renewal of
his acquaintance with an officer whom he had known abroad, and who
made one of his party at the whist-table.
The name of this gentleman, with whom the reader will hereafter be
better acquainted, was Trent. He had formerly been in the same
regiment with Booth, and there was some intimacy between them. Captain
Trent exprest great delight in meeting his brother officer, and both
mutually promised to visit each other.
The scenes which had past the preceding night and that morning had so
confused Amelia's thoughts, that, in the hurry in which she was
carried off by Mrs. James, she had entirely forgot her appointment
with Dr Harrison. When she was informed at her return home that the
doctor had been to wait upon her, and had expressed some anger at her
being gone out, she became greatly uneasy, and begged of her husband
to go to the doctor's lodgings and make her apology.
But lest the reader should be as angry with the doctor as he had
declared himself with Amelia, we think proper to explain the matter.
Nothing then was farther from the doctor's mind than the conception of
any anger towards Amelia. On the contrary, when the girl answered him
that her mistress was not at home, the doctor said with great good
humour, "How! not at home! then tell your mistress she is a giddy
vagabond, and I will come to see her no more till she sends for me."
This the poor girl, from misunderstanding one word, and half
forgetting the rest, had construed into great passion, several very
bad words, and a declaration that he would never see Amelia any more.
Chapter viii.
_In which two strangers make their appearance._
Booth went to the doctor's lodgings, and found him engaged with his
country friend and his son, a young gentleman who was lately in
orders; both whom the doctor had left, to keep his appointment with
Amelia.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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